…As NSN opens new office in Lagos
Nigerian telecoms landscape has witnessed significant growth in the last ten years as result of the liberalisation of the market. Nokia Siemens Network (NSN), however, says the growth will indeed continue, predicting that the country’s mobile penetration rate is expected to reach 82 percent by 2015.
The year 2009 saw mobile penetration grow from 49 percent to 57 percent in 2010. The telecoms infrastructure provider made this known at the opening of its new office in Lagos, recently. Dimitri Diliani, head of Africa region, NSN, says the firm has a vision in Africa of ‘internet for every African,’ noting that Nigeria is an important country in this vision.
As part of the telecoms company’s renewed focus on the African, Diliani points out that NSN restructured and separated its Africa operations at the beginning of 2011. “The African market is growing at a tremendous pace and we felt the need to provide additional focus to support this growth.
“Our new office in Lagos will serve as an integral part of our strategy to strengthen our operations in the continent and deliver superior services to our customers,” Dimitri posits. He also announces the new country director for Nigeria and the head of sales for the MTN Group in Africa, Raphael Udeogu. A Nigerian national with more than 23 years experience and a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration from the United States, Raphael joined NSN as part of the company’s acquisition of the wireless network infrastructure assets of Motorola Solutions in April 2011.
In Motorola Networks, he last served as the senior director for Motorola sales for sub-Sahara Africa region and held multiple leadership positions in sales across the African continent and in the United States of America. Raphael presented the results of the 2011 Connectivity Scorecard, which is the first study to rank 50 countries worldwide on ICT infrastructure deployment and the extent to which the infrastructure is put to efficient use. “On a benchmark scale of 10, Nigeria scores a low ‘1.09’ and ranks 23rd on the list of developing countries (or resource & efficiency driven economies) measured in the overall study. Even though there is a positive increase in mobile penetration and a strong demand for Internet services, there needs to be a strong improvement in broadband services, literacy rates, business infrastructure and ICT utilization in business and public sectors.
“Raphael also emphasised the extensive pool of talented and well-educated human resources in Nigeria as key factors that will drive the growth of telecommunications sector. The inauguration of their Nigerian office was attended by Dimitri Diliani, head, Africa Region, Nokia Siemens Networks; Lolia Emakpore, director, policy and competition, Nigeria Communication Commission; Adebiyi F. Mabadeje, commissioner, science and technology; Tokunbo Fashola, Consultant to the Governor, ICT; Walter L. von den Driesch, Consul General, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany; Arja Koski representative of ambassador of Finland, among other dignitaries and company executives.
