Nigerian Firms Jostle $32Bn Data Centre Market

Nigeria is now well placed to play in the cloud IT infrastructure market, thanks to the avalanche data centre operators jostling for shares of the juicy market estimated to accelerate by 21% in 2015

A data centre is a dedicated space where companies can keep and operate most of the ICT infrastructure that supports their business.

At the moment, there are some top 10 operators in Nigeria including: 21st Century Technologies, Rack Cente, Vodacom Business, Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), MainOne, and MTN Business Lagos Datacenter. Others are: Globacom, Lagos Datacenter and Broadbased Datacenter.

Most of data centres have achieved Tier III Certification.

In terms of benefits accruable to the investors and the market, an International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker indicates that total cloud IT infrastructure spending including server, disk storage, and ethernet switch, will grow by 21% year-over-year to $32 billion in 2015, accounting for approximately 33% of all IT infrastructure spending, which will be up from about 28% in 2014.

Private cloud IT infrastructure, mostly data centres, spending will grow by 16% year-over-year to $12 billion, while public cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by 25% in 2015 to $21 billion.

For the full year 2014, cloud IT infrastructure spending totaled $26.4 billion, up 18.7% year over year from $22.3 billion; private cloud spending was just under $10.0 billion, up 20.7% year over year, while public cloud spending was $16.5 billion, up 17.5% year over year.

Michael Ikpoki, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria, said that “The Tier III Certification award mirrors the depth of investment in our network infrastructure. With this, our enterprise customers can be assured that all elements of the critical infrastructure in our data centre are capable of enterprise-grade performance in terms of power, security, cooling and disaster mitigation in the event of a fire outbreak”.

Also, Mr. Austin Okere, chief executive officer, CWG Plc disclosed the future direction of the company, tagged CWG 2.0, saying, “We consider the refocusing of our business into a subscription based model as a dual advantage play. In addition to being a more sustaining strategy, it maximizes our social impact investing on the economy of Africa, and helps to create jobs by empowering entrepreneurs. This in essence defines the new CWG PLC, which we have christened CWG 2.0”.

In the IDC report, it expects that by 2019 Cloud IT infrastructure spending to be $52 billion, or 45% of total IT infrastructure spend; public cloud will represent about $32 billion of that amount, and private cloud will account for the remaining $20 billion.