Published in News

Intel sees growth in Africa

by on08 May 2015


Dr Chipzilla I presume

Intel has added up the numbers and worked out that the best way to flog its chips is to follow the path of Stanley beat a path through the jungle into Africa.

During an exclusive media briefing at the Intel Solutions Summit 2015 (ISS 2015) Intel's Christian Morales, VP and General Manager for Europe, Middle East, Africa said that that Intel is looking at potentially opening an office within Rwanda.

 "Intel is placing a large focus on the African continent," Morales told IT News Africa.  While many expected Intel to run into more developed country's such as South Africa, those countries deeper into the continent had not been considered as a good Intel stomping ground.

That started to change in in 2014, when Chipzilla Intel entered into an agreement with business incubator, iHub, to foster and grow the developer community in Africa through targeted investments in mobile app development, online developer resources, university training programs, device seeding programs and expansion of technology hubs.

According to Morales: "Intel has not stopped there.. Intel is placing a strong focus on Education, Internet of Things, Cloud, and Data Centres. What excites me about Africa is its youthful exuberance and its strong focus on technology."

According to Morales, Africa's tech driven mind set allows Intel a great opportunity to invest within the continent.

Intel also introduced the Yolo smartphone to the Kenyan market. Morales added that Kenya was the first market in Africa to get the device, which lead to the smartphone launch becoming a massive success within the country.

Morales said: "A success like the Yolo smartphone allows Intel to develop, manufacture and bring in more and more devices into the African market."

 

Morales believes that, according to forecasts, over the next 4-5 years Africa will have over 50 million active desktop PCs. According to Morales, this will essentially make Africa one of the largest regions in the world utilising the desktop PC to access the internet, play games, and gain access to a variety of entertainment services.

"This makes Africa a key market for Intel to invest in," Morales added.

As Intel is set to place a large focus on Africa, the company is currently preparing to launch its Intel Compute Stick.

The Intel Compute Stick is expected to arrive in Africa in August 2015 and will be preloaded with either Linux or Windows 8.1. Crone added that Intel has been asked to do an Android version of the device, but this is still in the pipeline and will depend on interest in the device.

Rate this item
(1 Vote)

Read more about: