Indian tech firms are increasingly looking to invest in Africa’s telecommunications industry, citing “good responses” in terms of the market for electronic goods, according to National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), an India-based IT firm.
“The major markets for software exports is still the US (accounting for 62 per cent of exports) and Europe (28 per cent). There is also increasing demand from untapped emerging markets (10 per cent),” Moitra said.
“Africa, Japan and Middle East are showing good response and Nasscom is working very closely to explore these markets,” he added.
India is known for its IT-BPO services, and the industry registered total revenue of $101 billion for the 2012 financial year, and total software exports were to the tune of $69 billion.
The country has a huge human capital in the areas of analytics, design, engineering and animation, which they may be looking to sell to Africa, as the continent continues to experience a technology boom.
According to International Data Corporation (ICD), spending on software licenses and maintenance continues to grow rapidly in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as organisations strive to expand IT usage in order to support growing business needs in Africa’s fast-growing market.
Some of the rapidly selling software include Application Software, customer relationship management software, supply chain management and content applications. Infrastructure software like Systems and Network management software is also in demand, thanks to high rates of Internet penetration in the continent.
New companies and existing ones are also in need of development and deployment software like databases, business analytics and reporting tools, application servers among others.
With its strong human resource in IT, India could be looking to sell these services and software in parts of Africa, Japan and West Asia.
