The battle for Internet users in Africa has just stepped up a notch.
With 120 million people across Africa using Facebook in 2015 — a jump of 20 million from September 2014 — the company has decided to double down and open its first office on the continent. With a population of around 1 billion and growing, Africa has a lot of potential users to offer Internet companies that can get their strategy right.
Running out of Johannesburg, South Africa, the office will be headed by marketing industry veteran, Nunu Ntshingila. There are plans to hire an initial 25 employees, according to Re/code.
Facebook will initially concentrate business efforts on Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, the company said in a statement. It also provides support to Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique and Ethiopia.
In recognition of the fact that in excess of 80% of African Facebook users access the social network on mobile, Facebook said it will work on cementing relationships with advertisers and small businesses to support them in the mobile ad space.
“Mobile is not a trend; it’s the fastest development in communications we’ve ever seen. This couldn’t be more true in Africa – where so many people are mobile-only,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said in the statement. “Facebook is already a central part of people’s lives in Africa, and with more than a billion people in Africa, we want to do more to help people and businesses connect.”
Facebook has been working on getting more Africans online for a number of years, targeting countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana with its Internet.org program. Internet.org aims to get more people in the developing world online by working with local data providers — and maybe one day, drones, satellites and lasers — to supply free connectivity to websites like Wikipedia, job boards, BBC News, and of course, Facebook.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing. In May, digital liberty groups signed an open letter accusing Internet.org of violating principals of net neutrality by creating a “two-tiered” Internet, whereby those in the developing world are only able to access certain pre-selected sites. A number of Indian Internet companies withdrew their support from the project in April over the controversy.
Google is also competing in the global connectivity space. Their Project Link aims to bring fiber networks to the developing world, while Project Loon is testing giant air balloons that could supply Internet from the air. Google already has several offices in Africa.
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Source: Mashable.com