Business News Report – March 2019

by Grant Geraghty | Mar 29, 2019 | PEO

Every month Africa HR Solutions curates the latest high impact news across Africa. Check the top business news for March 2019.

Uber 'buys' monopoly in North Africa

Ride-hailing giant Uber has chalked up a major win in its chase for global market share with a $3.1 billion acquisition of Careem, its major competitor in the Middle East and North Africa.

The acquisition, Uber’s biggest ever, translates into dominance in key markets in North Africa where both ride hailing companies have previously tussled for users. The acquisition will see the Dubai-headquartered Careem become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber while operating independently and retaining its name, app, brand and services.

MainOne and Facebook announce open-access fiber network in Nigeria

MainOne has announced a metro fiber infrastructure project in two states of Nigeria, with support from Facebook. These open-access transport networks will provide metro fiber connectivity to reach more than 1,000,000 people in Benin City, Abeokuta, Sagamu and 10 other towns.

The infrastructure collaboration is part of Facebook’s efforts to connect more people to broadband internet. As part of this project, MainOne is building and operating approximately 750 km terrestrial fiber infrastructure in Edo and Ogun States, two of Nigeria’s fastest growing states.

Ethiopia launches a global 'green' crowdfunding campaign

The office of prime minister Abiy Ahmed has launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at making the capital a site for urban tourism by developing greener spaces along a 56-kilometer (35 miles) river stream.

The project will also help mitigate against the flooding at the riverbanks, create bicycle paths and walkways, and nurture a green economy that would make the city more competitive.

Microsoft opens first data centres in Africa

Microsoft Azure is now available from the new cloud regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The combination of Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure with the new regions in Africa will create greater economic opportunity for thousands of businesses.

According to the Cloud Africa 2018 report, cloud use among medium to large organisations in Africa has more than doubled between 2013 and 2018. Due to the benefits of cloud in offering efficiency and scalability, more than 90 percent of surveyed companies in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria have plans to increase their spending on cloud computing in the next year.