By Kathy Gibson – With its growing population and structural needs, the possibilities for Africa are almost limitless.
This is the word from Craig Dawson, commercial business development: Africa at AMD – and a veteran of the African market – who says that education, healthcare and public services are driving scale adoption.
“What we are seeing is more technology adoption in the agriculture, mining, energy, and financial sectors which are becoming more data- and analytics-led,” he adds.
“Digital government, fintech, and cloud-enabled services are also emerging as the continent develops.”
Wayne Holt
Wayne Holt, SYS head of consumer accounts at ASUS, agrees that the African market presents a wealth of untapped potential due to expanding middle-class populations and digital transformation initiatives.
“Asus is actively positioning for growth in Southern Africa, targeting both consumer and prosumer segments with opportunities to provide unique hybrid work solutions, high performance solutions like ProArt creative laptops for the growing creator communities in Africa, and Copilot+ PCs for AI-driven productivity.”
Data growth, regulatory pressure and operational continuity are the main drivers that Veeam is seeing, says the software vendor’s Lisa Strydom, senior manager: channel sales South Africa.
“Financial services and fintech continue to lead, driven by rapid digital banking expansion, mobile payments, and increasing regulatory scrutiny around data protection and resilience,” she says.
Mining and natural resources, including oil and gas, remain major contributors to GDP in several markets and are increasingly dependent on data for operational efficiency, safety systems, and predictive analytics.
Meanwhile, agriculture and agritech are scaling quickly as data, AI and IoT are adopted to improve yield forecasting, supply chain visibility, and sustainability.
Strydom adds that public sector, healthcare, and education are seeing growing investment in digitisation, particularly as governments modernise citizen services and institutions move more workloads to cloud platforms.
“At the same time, professional and business services are expanding alongside regional economic growth, with greater reliance on hybrid IT environments and regulatory compliance.”
Technology is going to be a key enabler for many of these verticals to success, says Dawson.
“Technology is enabling scale without legacy constraints,” he says. “Cloud, AI, and mobile platforms allow African organisations to pass traditional models, improve efficiency, and deliver services at national and regional scale.
“Importantly, technology is enabling inclusion: connecting rural communities, modernising education, and supporting sustainable development,” Dawson adds.
But technology is not acting as a single “silver bullet”, says Holt.
“It is working as a stack of enablers that together reduce cost, overcome infrastructure gaps, and create new demand for devices.”
He says a number of contributing factors are enabling this: connectivity has finally crossed the viability threshold and, although not perfect, is now “good enough” in most urban and peri‑urban Africa for sustained device usage.
“We are also seeing a trend where Africa’s digital leap starts on mobile, but is scaling to PCs,” Holt explains.
“The pattern we see is that adoption begins on smartphones (payments, learning, messaging), complexity then grows (reporting, content creation, data entry), and users are upgrading to laptops/desktops.”
Strydom elaborates on the idea of technology acting as a force multiplier. “It enables scale without requiring legacy infrastructure.”
Because of this, cloud adoption and hybrid IT models allow organisations to modernise quickly while retaining control over sensitive data.
Data and AI technologies can optimise operations, improve decision‑making, and unlock new commercial models – particularly in sectors such as fintech, agriculture, and resources.
Automation and analytics are helping organisations operate more efficiently and manage growing data volumes despite limited specialist talent, Strydom says.
“And, crucially, data resilience and trust are becoming prerequisites for digital growth, particularly as AI adoption accelerates and regulatory expectations increase.”
The continent is brimful of potential, and the technology exists to enable it – but there are still big hurdles to overcome.
“Connectivity and infrastructure gaps persist in parts of the continent, particularly outside major urban centres,” Strydom points out. “Skills shortages, especially in cybersecurity, cloud, and data management, remain a constraint for many organisations.”
Fragmented regulatory environments can complicate regional scale and compliance, she adds.
Other issues relate to risk. “Cybersecurity risk is rising faster than many organisations’ ability to protect and recover data, particularly as cloud and AI adoption outpaces governance and security controls,” Strydom says. “And there are still operational resilience gaps, where organisations have confidence in recovery, but lack proven, tested capabilities.”
On the device front, Holt agrees that the opportunity is real, but could be derailed less by demand and more by frictions.
He points to the biggest risks being: connectivity gaps, where there is more usage than coverage; affordability and financing constraints; digital skills and adoption maturity; power and infrastructure reliability, fragmented routes‑to‑market and grey imports; policy, tax, and regulatory volatility; trust; after‑sales support; and lifetime cost concerns.
Overcoming challenges in a shifting market
Dawson has been developing and servicing markets in Africa for the best part of two decades.
During that time, he says the biggest shift he has seen has been in mindset and adoption.
“Africa has moved from being viewed mainly as a downstream consumer to becoming an active innovation contributor,” he points out. “Governments are now readily adopting things like digital transformation – particularly in fintech, mobility, agritech and digital services.
“There is also far greater technical depth, stronger local partners, and a growing focus on building sustainable, sovereign digital capabilities.”
During his years dealing in various African countries, Dawson says the key challenges have included infrastructure gaps, skills shortages, and fragmented markets.
“Over time, these have been addressed through better connectivity, public–private partnerships, and an increasingly capable partner ecosystem,” he says. “Nowadays, the focus has shifted from technology availability to how it can be deployed and adopted as a solution.”
Going forward, he believes the next challenges to confront the continent will be around scaling responsibly. This includes all aspects of power availability, sustainability, cyber resilience, and skills development.
“As AI and data become central to growth, ensuring access and long-term talent enablement will be critical for the continent over the next five years,” Dawson says.
The more immediate challenge, says Holt, is centred around the structural shortage in memory (DRAM and NAND) and certain high‑end processors that the global electronics industry is facing.
He explains that this is being driven by massive AI and data‑centre demand, so manufacturers are reallocating capacity to high bandwidth memory (HBM).
“This is driving strategic production cuts by memory manufacturers,” Holt says. “At the same time, geopolitical and trade restrictions are also stifling availability.”
As a result, prices for DRAM and NAND rose sharply between 2024 and 2026, with PC OEMs facing 15% to 25% bill of materials cost increases.
“This directly affects Africa by raising end user prices in a price‑sensitive market and reducing availability of certain configurations,” Holt says.
“ASUS is better positioned than many OEM peers to address this challenge by rationalising regional SKUs – prioritising configurations that maximise volume per component unit. The company uses pricing segmentation to absorb costs on entry products and by actively communicating price shifts with channel partners, enabling planning rather than disruption.”
Africa is particularly sensitive to the global shortages, Dawson points out.
“Africa is feeling the impact earlier and will feel it for longer largely due to logistics and prioritisation challenges,” he explains. “And our local currencies also face continuous rate fluctuations.”
However, the crisis has reignited interest in opex-based models, cloud services, and shared infrastructure. “These can all reduce reliance on upfront hardware ownership while increasing flexibility and lowering power consumption,” Dawson adds.
The role of the channel
The channel plays a central role in Africa’s technology ecosystem, providing the local context, skills, and market reach that are essential in such diverse environments.
Strydom points out that partners bring deep understanding of regional infrastructure, regulatory requirements, and customer needs, enabling more effective deployment and adoption of technology across different markets.
“Channel partners also support customers in designing and operating hybrid and cloud environments that reflect local infrastructure realities – from connectivity constraints to data sovereignty considerations,” she points out.
“As digital transformation accelerates, service providers and systems integrators are increasingly acting as trusted advisors, helping organisations move beyond basic data protection toward proven data resilience and AI‑ready foundations.”
For Veeam, the channel is critical to scaling securely across the region, delivering services consistently, and enabling long‑term customer success.
Going forward, Dawson believes that the channel has a major opportunity to move up the value stack – from product fulfilment, to solutions, services, and lifecycle support.
“Partners that combine local understanding with global platforms – particularly in cloud, AI and managed services – will be instrumental in enabling Africa’s next phase of digital growth” he says.
In Africa channel partners convert potential into revenue, trust, and long‑term market presence, says Holt.
“They provide access where infrastructure is fragmented, localisation where markets diverge, financing where credit is scarce, trust where relationships dominate, service where conditions are harsh, and demand where categories are still emerging.,” Holt says. “For ASUS, success in Africa is inseparable from the strength of our channel partnerships. Without empowered, capable and well‑aligned partners, even the best technology struggles to gain traction.
“With them, scalable and sustainable growth becomes possible,” he adds.
Future opportunities and growth?
Future growth opportunities across Africa are expected to emerge across several key dimensions, says Strydom.
“From an industry perspective, financial services and fintech will continue to lead as digital banking, mobile payments and regulatory requirements drive demand for secure, resilient data foundations.
“At the same time, public sector and other regulated industries are accelerating digitisation initiatives, increasing the need for trusted data protection and recovery capabilities,” she says.
“Resource‑driven sectors such as mining, energy, and utilities are also investing more heavily in data and analytics to improve operational efficiency and safety, while healthcare and education organisations are modernising their IT environments as digitisation accelerates.”
From a product and solution standpoint, Strydom says demand is growing for capabilities that help organisations move beyond basic backup toward proven data resilience and cyber recovery, particularly as ransomware threats persist.
“Hybrid and multi-cloud data protection remains a priority as enterprises continue to operate across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments.
“Increasingly, organisations are also looking to establish data and AI trust, ensuring they can govern, protect, and recover data as AI moves from experimentation into production,” Strydom says. “This is reinforced by rising focus on security and compliance driven resilience, aligned with evolving regulatory expectations.”
Geographically, Strydom believes that South Africa will remain a key growth market and regional hub, supported by a more mature IT ecosystem and stronger regulatory drivers.
“But beyond this, expansion opportunities are emerging across Southern, East and West Africa as cloud adoption matures and organisations seek scalable, trusted approaches to protecting data while supporting digital and AI‑driven growth.”