2.7 billion people, or a third of the world’s population, still do not have access to the Internet worldwide. © Getty — Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket
Microsoft is giving itself the means to reach more consumers. The American group has announced that it wants to provide Internet access for 250 million people worldwide by 2025, including 100 million in Africa. To these ends, the company plans to collaborate with the satellite provider Viasat to serve countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Senegal and Angola, but also Mexico, Guatemala and the United States.
This expansion of connectivity across the world is part of Airband, an initiative launched by Microsoft to provide high-speed connection to populations living in the most remote or poorly equipped areas. Since 2017, this action has connected 50 million people to the Internet, including 10 million in Africa. However, the work to be done is still substantial, while 2.7 billion people, or a third of the world’s population, still do not have access to the Web, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency United Nations. While 89% of the European population is connected, this percentage drops to 40% in Africa.
Africa, “a new market”
In addition to fighting the digital divide, this project could also have positive economic benefits for the Redmond firm. Indeed, the African continent could constitute a new reservoir of opportunities in a few years, when a slowdown in growth, particularly in the cloud, could weigh down the financial performance of the company in Europe, the United States and in Asia. The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, has also made no secret of this ambition, declaring to Archyde.com that the improvement of internet coverage in Africa was aimed at “build a new market for internet access, cloud usage, artificial intelligence power and data mining capability”.
Au third trimester, Microsoft beat analysts’ expectations with revenue of $50.1 billion, up 11% year-on-year. However, the American firm approaches the end of the year with excitement due to the expected slowdown in its growth in the cloud. However, the situation is far from alarming, Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform, having seen its revenue increase by 35% between July and September.