"What kind of company is Huawei? We don't believe that Chinese companies can have advanced communication technology! Don't always come to me!" In 1998, what Huawei people encountered when they first set foot in Africa was not the enthusiasm from the Sunshine Continent, but It was a cold rejection from a Congo (Kinshasa) client.
At the 2023 China-invested Africa Huawei Cloud Summit, He Shi, President of Huawei Cloud South Africa, told the story of Huawei's presence in Africa more than ten years ago.
Today's Africa and Huawei have both changed their appearance.
Huawei has grown from immaturity to maturity in Africa. Currently, Huawei is cooperating with more than 200 African telecom operators, becoming a leader in the African telecom field and a digital transformation partner of more than 1,500 local African companies.
Africa is no longer the harsh and barren land of the past. More and more African countries have begun to build e-government affairs. The Internet penetration rate and mobile device penetration rate in Africa are also increasing, with a huge population base and a growing number of young Internet users. New opportunities for Africa's digital economy are brewing.
In 2023, the European, American, Japanese and Korean markets will peak one after another, and the overall market competition in Africa will be relatively relaxed. Many overseas manufacturers will start to set their sights on Africa. Combined with the growth cycle of Africa's digital economy, a "perfect storm" for a new continent has formed.
Digital businesses such as financial technology, games, and e-commerce have become popular tracks for going overseas to Africa. Therefore, more and more overseas companies and local African companies choose to grow on the cloud from the beginning. Stable, efficient, sustainable and innovative cloud services have become an essential infrastructure for Digital Africa.
HUAWEI CLOUD, which has been rooted in Africa for decades, has been exposed to rain, so I want to hold an umbrella for others. I hope that through my own platform capabilities, including legal affairs, taxation, compliance consulting, and cloud technology resources, I can help overseas companies develop steadily in Africa and work together. To meet the challenges of Africa and achieve a win-win situation.
On June 19th, Lingyun Going to the Sea and winning thousands of miles, the 2023 Chinese Investment Going to Africa Huawei Cloud Summit was held in Shanghai. He Shi, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Southern Africa, delivered a keynote speech "Internet Redefining the Future of Africa's Digital Economy", introducing Huawei's decades of experience in Africa and HUAWEI CLOUD's insights into Africa's future development.
At the meeting, He Shi proposed that "openness and development will be the theme of Africa's future."
Africa, the full name of Africa, is the meaning of "sunshine". At present and in the future, the entire African continent will feel the enthusiasm of Chinese companies and the sunshine of digitalization.
Starting from HUAWEI CLOUD's decades of experience in Africa, let's take a look at how African and Chinese companies, together with HUAWEI CLOUD, can build a cloud-based Africa in the digital age.
go to africa
A golden continent intertwined with sunlight and shadows
Africa, which has the advantage of being a latecomer, is becoming the first choice for Chinese innovative companies to go overseas.
On the one hand, Africa's opportunities are unique. As the continent with the fastest population growth and the youngest, Africa is experiencing rapid development and is the next trillion-dollar blue ocean market. New technologies and new formats are emerging one after another. It is very likely that start-ups will become giants in a certain field. There are not many markets in Europe, America, China, India, and Southeast Asia.
As He Shi said, at present, Africa’s politics continue to be stable, its business environment score is increasing, and its international image is constantly improving; its economy is developing rapidly, and its GDP growth is much higher than the global average; its demographic dividend is huge, and its young people in Africa are large in scale and growing fast; The urbanization is accelerating, the urban population is growing rapidly, and the overall consumption capacity is improving.
On the other hand, China's rapid development model experience has performed very well in digital industries such as the Internet, games, e-commerce, social entertainment, and finance, and is an ideal sample of Africa's digital economy. It is a brand-new development idea for Chinese-funded enterprises to help Africa develop by going overseas.
He Shi believes that Chinese-funded enterprises can use their digital economy experience, innovation capabilities and technological advantages to promote the rapid development of African countries' digital economy and improve people's livelihood, while also promoting economic and trade cooperation and cultural exchanges between China and Africa.
Hunger for technology on the one hand and hunger for the market on the other, the win-win value of China and Africa in the digital age is self-evident.
However, where there is light, there must be shadows. Behind the bright prospects of going to sea in Africa, there may often be hidden hidden dangers that are not known to later generations. Enterprises cannot ignore the real existence of these situations and blindly explore the new continent.
Faced with the challenges of going to Africa, He Shi also shared his own experience and views. In short, there are four major risks:
1. Differences in infrastructure. Africa is a relatively early market with uneven regional development. The level of infrastructure varies from country to country, region to region, and even between urban areas and rural areas of the same city. The large differences and defects in the resource layout, network delay, business guarantee reliability, and service response timeliness of digital infrastructure have brought obstacles to Chinese-funded enterprises going overseas. Chinese enterprises need more reliable cloud services in emerging markets going overseas.
2. Security compliance. Under the tide of privacy and data protection legislation, 80% of the world's countries/regions have or are in the process of privacy and data protection legislation. For many Chinese companies, the African market is more distant and unfamiliar than the Southeast Asian market. Understanding the local security compliance policies in Africa and building a sound and effective data compliance system are the prerequisites for the stable development of Chinese companies in the local area.
3. Localized operation. The African market is extremely scattered, with 54 countries and 1.3 billion people with diverse cultures and a complex market environment. It is necessary for Chinese companies to improve their "Think Globally, Act Locally" capabilities and integrate localized operations into the entire process of business design, promotion and operation.
4. Going to sea ecology. The sector differentiation in the African market is very serious, and without deep cultivation, it will be very difficult for enterprises to encounter uncertain events. In order to better deal with risks such as overseas logistics facilities, network communications, user payments, and exchange gains and losses, Chinese companies need to establish a local comprehensive ecology and work closely with local ecological partners to better deal with risks and achieve long-term stability.
In general, Africa is a golden continent for Chinese companies to go overseas, but compared with Eurasia, where infrastructure is relatively complete, Africa is also a market with the most complex and difficult environment.
How to let digital technology shine on the land of Africa like the sun, so that a large number of local and Chinese companies can walk in the light, is what HUAWEI CLOUD has been thinking and exploring. With decades of practice, it will make Africa even closer to "Wakanda". further.
Use black land to fully support digital Africa
Chinese companies are ready, is Africa ready? Bridging the digital divide in Africa is what HUAWEI CLOUD has been doing in Africa for many years.
He Shi shared some stories of Huawei's 25 years of rooting in Africa. From 1998 to the present, Huawei has experienced countless difficulties from a pioneer to a builder to a leader. After more than ten years of construction and rapid development, Huawei has promoted The development of the digital economy, the promotion of industrialization and employment in Africa, and education have made important social contributions. Among them, HUAWEI CLOUD opens up Huawei's 30 years of ICT technology accumulation and digital transformation experience, and works with customers, partners, and developers to deepen digitalization, and everything is a service. African cloud base.
When various industries go to Africa, what they face is no longer the wilderness when Huawei first arrived, but the digital infrastructure built by Huawei Cloud.
At this summit, the real voices of some Chinese-funded enterprises also let us feel the real needs of going to Africa and what Chinese-funded enterprises can bring to Africa:
1. Overall improvement of experience.
OPay, a financial technology platform, builds a one-stop financial service platform for digital wallets in Africa, providing local users with financial services based on technologies such as cloud computing, AI and big data. Financial services have particularly high requirements for the stability, reliability, and security of cloud services.
In this regard, HUAWEI CLOUD, as the only Chinese cloud in Africa, has become the most reliable cloud service partner for Chinese Internet companies going overseas, bringing the best experience.
Currently, HUAWEI CLOUD's Region in Africa covers South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, and many other countries and regions. At the same time, it is also establishing a data center node in Egypt to provide lower latency, safe and reliable cloud services.
According to Cao Feng of OPay, HUAWEI CLOUD helps OPay operate stably during the peak period of OPay business during the rapid growth of OPay business, reduces latency by more than 40%, improves user experience, and meets global financial regulatory and personal privacy protection compliance, thereby helping OPay Nigeria Fintech The business grew rapidly. The two parties will continue to cooperate and contribute to inclusive finance in Africa.
2. Comprehensive optimization of cost performance.
The rapid growth of business in Africa has made overseas companies happy; the exponentially rising digital costs have put pressure on overseas companies. The annual business volume of Qingwang Technology has doubled, and the number of overseas users has also increased significantly.
The global layout of HUAWEI CLOUD helps LightNet achieve the stability of resources and lines, which greatly supports the business development of LightNet. Li Binbin, Senior Vice President of Qingwang Technology, said: "During the use process, the business will help customers reduce costs and increase efficiency from the customer's perspective, and has cooperated with architects many times to provide cost reduction suggestions for our resource solutions." So choosing HUAWEI CLOUD allows us to Don't worry, feel at ease.
The technical advantages of HUAWEI CLOUD's self-developed architecture, 100% computing power is available, and the asset utilization rate is improved, which can bring extreme stability and performance. At the same time, structural cost reduction and efficiency increase provide customers with the best price performance.
3. Full-time response of the service.
As He Shi said, service is what made Huawei a fortune. It is a major gene of Huawei's deep cultivation of the African market, and it is also the biggest difference between Huawei and other overseas manufacturers. At the end of 2003, the CTO of the largest operator in Nigeria hoped to open a few more stations during Christmas to cope with the high-frequency communication pressure during the holiday. The customer first turned to an overseas supplier, but the company has only one employee based in Nigeria and has already returned home from early leave. The CTO had no choice but to turn to Huawei. Huawei told him: "We serve customers at any time 365 days a year", and immediately organized an engineering team to build a website and open the network before Christmas. The service was provided on time as desired.
Service at any time, as it is for local African companies, as it is for Chinese companies going overseas. HUAWEI CLOUD implements the strategy of "everything is a service" and provides 24/7 localized services in a timely manner to protect customers' business.
There was a detail at the scene that moved me very much. He Shi mentioned: "Since Huawei has waterproof mobile phones, Huawei Cloud engineers will answer your calls in time even when they are taking a shower. 54 countries in Africa have Huawei representative offices and engineers. Whether it is Any country can rush to the scene in the first time, and we are very confident in this point."
4. Full promotion of the platform.
Africa has an incremental blue ocean market of 1.4 billion people. China has advanced and mature e-commerce models and experience. E-commerce is an important theme for Chinese capital to go overseas. Yang Tao, CEO of Kilimall, said, "Only e-commerce can quickly change the lives of more Africans. African consumers need it, and Chinese companies need it too."
The development of e-commerce business requires the coordination of a large number of local partner ecology and business resources. At this time, HUAWEI CLOUD's extensive local connections, rich business experience, and strong operator resource coordination play a key role.
Kilimall and HUAWEI CLOUD have cooperated since 2019, using HUAWEI CLOUD containers, middleware, databases, and high-quality network services, and have been running stably for more than 4 years. The Huawei team actively helped Kilimall build an e-commerce ecosystem, enrich payment channels and merchants, and take root in East Africa together to meet the material and spiritual needs of the Chinese and African people.
The advantage of Huawei Cloud in the African cloud market is not a one-day achievement, but a full consideration of the needs of overseas companies. It took decades to establish a very comprehensive foundation with various capabilities and consolidate Africa's digital infrastructure to meet The development needs of various industries in Africa.
The next question is, as Africa's digital economy continues to accelerate on the cloud, what kind of future can we see?
Towards "Wakanda"
Africa's future in the digital sun
The movie "Black Panther" may be the most advanced imagining of Africa's future. A fictional African country "Wakanda" has become the most technologically advanced place on earth.
Today, it seems that Huawei Cloud is removing the obstacles for Chinese companies to go to Africa, and it is also bringing Africa one step closer to "Wakanda".
1. Improve the base soil. HUAWEI CLOUD's in-depth accumulation in cloud computing and intelligence has improved Africa's digital soil year after year, including upgraded infrastructure construction, helping the cultivation of ICT digital talents in Africa, and fully promoting new technology access and inclusive connectivity , These have laid the foundation and possibility for Africa to narrow the digital divide, undertake new technologies and new businesses, and build a black land for steady development for Chinese companies to go global, quickly take root in the local market.
2. Sow the seeds of awareness. In the distant African continent, information exchange is underdeveloped and not real-time. Chinese companies cannot conduct market insights on paper like they do in Southeast Asia and Japan. They need people to go out and conduct on-site inspections. The cost is very high. To help more companies take the first step towards Africa, HUAWEI CLOUD continues to promote consensus, and share Huawei's years of experience in Africa, lessons learned, "pitfalls" and detours it has gone through, sincerely and authentically Share with enterprises in a timely manner, lower the cognitive threshold of going to Africa, and allow the African market demand and the capabilities of Chinese enterprises to be connected.
3. All the way to protect the seedlings of bacon. Chinese companies have taken the first step to go to Africa, and the next priority is to survive and make money. To deal with uncertain risks, they must be deeply rooted in the local area. HUAWEI CLOUD's extremely high price-performance ratio, services available at any time, and localized platform resources are essentially to protect the growth of enterprises, allowing enterprises to develop locally at the lowest cost, and truly reducing the risk of enterprises going overseas.
The fiery opportunities in digital Africa are calling Chinese companies to set sail. In the black land of Huawei Cloud, under the sunshine of digital, it illuminates the road to gold mining for Chinese-funded enterprises, and also illuminates the dream of "Wakanda" in Africa.
