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- Cheaper Handsets and Network Investments Boost East African
Mobile Market, Finds Frost & Sullivan - About Frost & Sullivan
- Kenya Telecom Sector Analysis
- Access Kenya launches hardy fibre optic cable
- Thursday, March 17, 2011HP LAUNCHES NEW TRAINING CENTRE IN KENYA
Cheaper Handsets and Network Investments Boost East African Mobile Market, Finds Frost & Sullivan
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan. 14 -The mobile communications markets of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda are in their growth stages. In 2008, Kenya enjoyed the highest number of active subscribers and revenues among the four countries. Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda are however likely to witness significant growth over the next seven years due to increasing network investments, continuing product innovation and reduced handset costs.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.wireless.frost.com), East African Mobile Communications Markets, finds that the market earned revenues of $2.62 billion in 2008, and estimates this to reach $8.99 billion in 2015. The technologies covered in this study are code division multiple access (CDMA), global system for mobile communications (GSM), general packet radio service (GPRS), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) and wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA).
If you are interested in more information on this study, please send an e-mail to Patrick Cairns, Corporate Communications, at patrick.cairns@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country.
"The key drivers in these markets include strong gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates, increasing demand for mobile money transfer services and declining handset costs," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Jiaqi Sun. "East African consumers are spending more on mobile communications due to the low fixed-line network coverage, underdeveloped banking systems, and the current limited availability of inexpensive handsets."
Currently, there are 37.6 million mobile subscribers in east Africa, at a penetration rate of 30.8 per cent. The total number of subscribers is expected to reach 99.5 million in 2015, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.9 per cent.
"The launching of undersea cables is anticipated to reduce the cost of telecommunications by 60.0 per cent over the next 7 years," says Sun. "This will boost the demand for mobile Internet access."
However, there are challenges faced by the market participants such as high tax rates on mobile services, the lack of network rollout in rural areas and the current low demand for data services. Additionally, the demand for data services from corporate clients has dwindled due to the economic downturn.
"Frost & Sullivan expects mobile network operators to enhance their services by continuously investing in infrastructure like call-switching capacity," Sun says. "This will help in developing innovative solutions like mobile money transfer services, and initiate managed services by outsourcing non-core businesses like network maintenances. These strategies will step-up the demand for mobile services, boosting subscriber and revenue growth."
East African Mobile Communications Markets is part of the Mobile & Wireless Growth Partnership Services programme, which also includes research in the following markets: Southern African Mobile Communications Market, West African Mobile Communications Market, Central African Mobile Communications Market, and Mozambican Mobile Communications Market. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.
The Kenyan Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is poised for a technological explosion in future as the government is bracing itself to supply the human resources, legal structures, finance and infrastructure in order to support ICT initiatives. Also, all the technology-related equipments are readily available in the country due to the presence of distribution centers of various technology and hardware manufacturers. Moreover, the number of graduates with ICT training is expected to double by the end of this decade.
Our latest industry research “Kenya Telecom Sector Analysis” studies all the current industry trends, developments and competitive landscape of the Kenyan telecom market, which will help clients to better understand the market structure and its progress in the years to come. The report provides industry forecast on various telecom segments based on feasible telecom industry environment in Kenya, including fixed-line subscribers and penetration, mobile subscribers and penetration, Internet users, and broadband subscribers and penetration. The report also provides thorough analysis on the current and future outlook of various emerging technologies such as 3G and WiMAX.
As per our research, introduction of 3G services by all the telecom operators and allowance of number portability will play an important role in propelling the growth of Kenya’s telecom sector in the coming years. In addition to this, with rapidly improving mobile infrastructure and intensifying competition among mobile operators, the number of mobile subscribers in the country will grow at a CAGR of over 15% between 2010 and 2013 to reach 32 Million by the end of 2013, representing a penetration rate of over 72%.
Supported by the future-looking vision of the government, Kenya is on the verge of becoming one of the fastest growing Internet/broadband markets in the continent. Our research projects that the number of Internet users and broadband subscribers will grow at CAGR of over 24% and nearly 130% respectively during 2010-2013.
Besides, the forces that are fueling growth in the Kenyan telecom sector have been discussed in detail. The report also gives an overview of the competitive landscape in the country, in which leading industry players have been covered.
Access Kenya launches hardy fibre optic cable
Access Kenya has launched a 140 kilometer long fiber optic cable.
The fiber cable uses the ring redundancy technology that enables one half of the cable to continue transmitting data should it be accidentally or maliciously damaged.
The move is aimed at tackling cable vandalism that has become very rampant in the country as competition to connect residential homes to the Internet heats up.
Access Kenya managing director Jonathan Somen says the fiber network is of high quality and uses the ethernet technology that has been designed for use in harsh industrial environments, such as in hazardous location.
Access Kenya controls almost half of the corporate market and has invested about 450 million shillings into the project.
Permanent secretary in the ministry of information and technology Dr Bitange Ndemo said another fiber optic cable, Eassy will be landing in the country next week.
The cable is jointly owned by Telkom Kenya and Telkom South Africa.
This will bring to four the number of cables that have landed in the East Africa coast. Three fiber optic cable networks are already operational in the country
Thursday, March 17, 2011HP LAUNCHES NEW TRAINING CENTRE IN KENYA
HP Managing Director Mr Ken Mbwaya in a past event
By Dan Muhuni
Global Integrated Solutions Provider, Hewlett Packard (HP) yesterday opened a new state of the art Training Centre that will seek to impart knowledge of HP products, services and the depth of information and technology capabilities that will enable its customers and partners to maximize the full potential of their company’s investments in technology.
The Training Centre is set to serve as a key resource centre for strengthening capacity of current and future customers as well as business partners by developing and providing new training programs and solutions in East Africa.
According to Ken Mbwaya, managing director, Hewlett Packard (HP) East Africa, most customers and local experts who have invested in HP products and services have felt the need to up skill their IT staff with the relevant skills for them to effectively manage their new technologies within their respective IT environments thus the need for an easily accessible training centre that has embraced Global training standards by ensuring that the training centre ad highly qualified trainers and adheres to a Global curricula “In our effort to skill our customers with the knowledge on our HP products and services, we realized that we need to bring a HP run training center to Kenya to make training more accessible to our customers and partners where they can gain the necessary skills and training needed in their daily operations in IT., 80% of downtimes is due to people and processes and we at HP want to address this by engaging in proactive training of IT resources ”
He added that with limited budgets for new technology, the state of the art facility will be ideal in terms of productivity increase through better skills attained and while also minimizing n business risk with a team that is able to deliver results more cost effectively. He further noted that, the training will assist customers in their journey to becoming adaptive enterprises.
The training center will be beneficial for IT specialists and a first in the industry as HP will be able to offer virtual classrooms in addition to the traditional learning methodologies trainings are also tailored to address specific customer requirements and IT environments where simulations trainings are held.
The customers will also be able to get HP certification after training which was recently rebranded HP ExpertONE. The certificate provides IT Professionals with an opportunity to acquire and measure skill and knowledge against a recognized IT Industry benchmark. They will also be able to attain expertise on IT Service Management and End User Technical Training amongst a myriad of other courses.
Mbwaya reiterated that HP pride in the acquisition of a prime location, world class HP certified instructors, top of the art HP equipment that is readily accessible by each student during training. Also the students will be engaged in hands on labs where they can practice live simulations depicting their work environments in a bid to offer strategic consulting and planning to help maximize return on investment.
As the world’s largest technology company, HP creates new possibilities for technology to have meaningful impact on people, business, government and society. It also brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems.