The Chinese tech giant Huawei aims to grant $10 million worth of cloud credits to 100 Nigerian startups in an attempt to grow its cloud business and acquire a significant market share in the continent and worldwide.
The free cloud credit move by Huawei is similar to that of its competitors, such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. These cloud credits help cloud provides onboard clients. In addition, the complexity of migrating to another cloud service provider ensures retention after spending the free credits.
However, acquiring a major share in the cloud market will take more than offering free credits as the majority of Nigerian startups are trying to reduce cloud services bills, which are in the USD denomination.
Huawei states that its solution to this problem is by providing billings in local currency, although it currently charges in USD. Hopefully the solution will be applied soon
Although new to the cloud computing market, the tech giant Huawei secured major Nigerian clients such as Opay, Eden Life, and Feather Africa.
The cloud computing market in Nigeria is fast growing in demand from startups, and operators such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS are increasing investments in the region.
According to a report by Xalam Analytics, the demand for cloud computing services in Africa is growing at an alarming 25% to 30% annually.
The Chinese tech giant Huawei aims to provide affordable services and projects to onboard at least 10,000 startups globally by the start of 2025. Huawei has currently onboarded over 3,000 startups.