The latest announcement by the tech giant, Google, to invest $1 billion USD to support digital transformation in Nigeria, South Africa, and other African countries will particularly impact business activities on the continent.
The US-based company said the investment would take a period of five-year and it’s aimed at reducing internet prices and increasing internet speed.
“Google is invested in building our global infrastructure to help bring everyone online. “This includes Equiano, a state-of-the-art subsea cable that will connect Africa with Europe. We are already making .tremendous progress on the construction of branches landing in Nigeria, Namibia, St Helena, and South Africa,” Managing Director for Google in Africa, Nitin Gajria, said on Wednesday, October 6, 2021
The module of the investment hasn’t been made public by the company that powers most of the web search on the continent
Significance of the Google Internet investment in Africa to SMEs
1) Businesses have gone digital, in countries like Germany, USA, England among others, people make more purchases on online. Entrepreneurs do most of their businesses online through the use fast internet connection.
In Nigeria and some African countries, internet speed is still problematic. Sometimes, it takes minutes or hours to have product uploaded online. This is even more hectic when the user isn’t in the city.
In a world where video marketing on YouTube and other video platforms is gradually overt taking the conventional TV advert, entrepreneurs need fast internet speed to get the message out to their prospective buyers online.
Google had said, “This will lead to a five-fold increase in internet speed in Nigeria, and almost triple in South Africa,” this will help them to do things faster and smarter and hugely reduce the frustration they get from internet speed.
2) Through what Google is bringing to the table, by reducing internet prices by at least 21 per cent, entrepreneurs including digital content marketers in Nigeria and across Africa will save more to do other things.
The fact remains, the overhead cost of doing business in Nigeria is high when it comes to data subscription, most especially if you’re a digital marketer or whose business and products rely on data bundle.
For instance 12GB costs N4,000 on MTN HyNetflex with a 30-day validity can hardly be enough for a week for a digital marketer who is connected to the internet 24/7
What does this mean for businesses?
With a 21% drop in the cost of data subscription, this means users will spend N3,160 instead of N4K for the same 12GB
A 6-month bundle of 800GB would go for NGN71,100 instead of the present N90,000 while subscribers will pay N118,500 for an annual 1.5TB instead of N150K, saving N31,500 in the process.
Bonus:
Speaking further, Gajria noted that the investment which begins 2022 and execpted to run through 2025 would also create at least 1.7 million indirect jobs in Nigeria and South Africa “because of the digital economy peripheral sectors”
Take away
We hope the leadership in Nigeria will do everything possible to continue to support Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in order to truly become the giant of Africa in terms of Ease of Doing Business
Presently, Nigeria is missing on the top 20 friendly African countries good for business on the Doing Business Index by the World Bank Group.
It occupies the number 21 position, countries like Mauritius with a population of less than 2 million people (according to the World Bank), Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa (despite its seasonal xenophobic attacks) and Ghana among other African countries are rated as friendly nations to establish business than Nigeria.
Featured Image credit:
- Marvin Meyer on unsplash.com