Huawei Cloud has witnessed significant business growth in South Africa over the past five years, with plans to introduce more cloud solutions to increase its market share and drive revenue growth, a company executive announced on Thursday.
The surge in demand for faster computing from both South African businesses and government sectors has attracted major cloud operators to the region. Huawei became the first international vendor to establish a local ‘hyperscale’ cloud data center in South Africa in 2019. Since then, the company has served over 1,000 clients, spanning government, financial services, education, telecoms, media, and e-commerce, according to Jacqueline Shi, president of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service, during a cloud summit in Johannesburg.
“With strong customer support, our cloud business in South Africa has grown more than 16 times over the past five years,” Shi said. However, she noted that while the growth has been substantial, the total revenue remains modest, prompting the company to introduce new cloud solutions to capture a larger portion of the market.
Market research firm Africa Analysis forecasts that South Africa’s cloud market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of around 26% between 2023 and 2028, reaching a value of approximately 113 billion rand ($6 billion). The rise in artificial intelligence adoption is a key factor driving this increase in corporate cloud spending.
“Choosing whether to adopt cloud technology is no longer optional. The question now is how fast and how effectively companies can make the transition,” Huawei Cloud South Africa Chief Executive Steven Chen told reporters. Huawei is competing with major cloud service providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet’s Google for a share of the South African market. The company operates three data center zones in Johannesburg to support its services.
