IBM Plans Africa Expansion as Telecommunications Demand Grows
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) plans to open 10 new offices in Africa, bringing its total locations on the continent to 35 by 2015 as it starts operations in Senegal, Tanzania and Angola.
“Africa today is the new market for IBM,” said Mamadou Ndiaye, director general of IBM Senegal.
The company has invested $300 million in new Africa operations since 2006, he said in an interview in Dakar May 13. By 2015, the world’s biggest computer-services provider expects to operate in at least 23 countries on the continent, said Gary Carroll, IBM’s general manager of Africa Geo-Expansion.
IBM, based in Armonk, New York, also wants to tap into Africa’s growing mobile-banking market by working with telecommunications companies on the continent, as it expects spending on information technology to expand 47 percent to $12.5 billion by 2015, according to a statement.
In Senegal, IBM is vying for contracts to improve management of the nation’s energy grid, said Ndiaye. It currently runs a customs-collection monitoring system at Senegal’s borders, he said.
IBM fell 64 cents to $169.28 at 2:21 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had climbed 16 percent this year before today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Drew Hinshaw in Dakar via Accra at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
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