SA is the 'foundation' for Emerson's African business

Emerson Network Power anticipates a surge in demand for Emerson data centre and telecoms products from African countries. The company designs, manufactures, installs and maintains products that provide electric power conditioning, power reliability and environmental control for telecoms networks and data centres.

"If you look at Emerson, over the past five years, more than 80% of the growth has come from emerging markets. That is not an unusual profile for a major multinational," Barbour said.

Speaking shortly after the opening of a new regional configuration centre in Johannesburg, he said: "We see SA as our foundation for our African business. From there we will look at the other countries to see which ones have telecoms roll-out. We think those countries will follow the cycle of investment - telecoms build-up followed by data centre build-up. When the capital flows in that way, we tend to find our best opportunities."

Barbour said Emerson Network Power's customers included the telecoms providers "and anyone who owns a data centre. This includes banks, insurance companies and healthcare companies".

The company's MD for sales, Nevan Witchell, said telecoms roll-out was a deciding factor "in where we go. We looked at certain trends, such as rising GDP (gross domestic product), rising direct foreign investment and rising incomes. When you look at certain countries in Africa, that is going to happen."

Witchell said Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal and Zambia were some of the countries offering lucrative opportunities.

"Here in Africa we have been primarily led by our telecoms. My observation is that in a lot of emerging markets telecoms is the leader. It tends to get in early in the cycle of investments and consumer needs," Barbour said.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge.