Fissal Oubida, General Manager and Global Marketing Director – Middle East, Africa, and India, Lexar, says the African tech ecosystem is poised for steady growth in 2024 and beyond

What are your reasons for coming onboard GITEX Africa, what are your expectations, and who are you hoping to meet at the show?
GITEX Africa is a signature tech and start-up expo that is poised to define the next phase of the continent’s digital economy and Lexar is ideally positioned to address the needs of this market with our cutting-edge product lineup. Morocco is one of the most technologically advanced countries in Africa and its strategic location as a geographical and cultural bridge between Africa and Europe makes it a major trade hub in the region. Moreover, the government’s strategy for digital transformation aims to create a conducive environment for the digitisation of Morocco’s growing economy.

We are excited to be back at GITEX Africa, especially at a time when we are focused on further strengthening our presence in the continent and build a strong distribution network across Africa. Morocco is a key market for Lexar in the context of the company’s strategic plans in Africa, as the government’s strategy for digital transformation aims to create a suitable environment for the digitisation of Morocco’s economy and aspires to become a digital regional hub.

In the past 12 months, Lexar has signed strategic agreements with multiple distributors and retailers in Morocco in line with its plans to build its brand presence and meet the growing demand for next-generation memory solutions. Lexar’s key distributors in Morocco include Digimate – handling volume distribution; DBM Maroc- a leading systems integrator in Morocco; and Abschir – handling Lexar’s imaging products distribution.

Are you planning to launch any product/service, demonstrate any technology, or sign any partnership/MoU during the show? Please provide details.
Lexar is eagerly looking forward to the excellent platform that GITEX Africa presents for us to showcase some of our latest memory products that offer the perfect combination of high speed and massive capacities. Whether it’s to store photos, videos, music or important files and other data, we have products that address all these needs while being compatible with laptops, desktop computers, smartphones or tablets.

During Gitex Africa 2024, Lexar will be showcasing the world’s fastest memory solutions with massive capacities, including the CFexpress Type A card and its latest high-performance gaming DRAM. It will also display its blazing-fast gaming DRAM, ARES RGB DDR5, which clocks in at 8400MT/s and with timing as low as CL40.

Complete product showcase at GITEX Africa 2024:

1. Professional CFexpress 4.0 Type B Card DIAMOND Series which leverages the latest PCIe Gen 4 for powerful performance and accelerated post-production efficiencies that professionals demand – a blistering-fast max. read speed of 3600MB/s and max. write of 3300MB/s.1
2. For Type-A gear users, Lexar will display the Professional CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card GOLD Series. It also utilizes PCIe Gen 4 technology and is the world’s fastest CFexpress Type A card with max. read speeds of 1800MB/s and max. write speeds of 1650MB/s.
3. The Professional GOLD microSD UHS-II Card – recommended by GoPro for use with their action cameras, it delivers max. read speeds of 280MB/s and max. write speeds of 180MB/s and comes in capacities up to 256GB.
4. The SL500 portable SSD – powered by Silicon Motion Technology; portable SSD controllers, with speeds up to 2000MB/s read and 1800MB/s write. Its sleek aluminium design offers easy portability, while its wide compatibility makes it suitable for mobile devices, laptops, cameras, Xbox, PlayStation, and more. It especially supports 4K 60FPS ProRes Apple Log video recording on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Most notably from a gamer’s perspective, Lexar has unveiled the professional NM1090 M.2 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD with Heatsink. It is a solid-state drive featuring PCIe Gen 5 performance with maximum read speeds of 12,000MB/s and maximum write speeds of 11,000MB/s. This makes it nearly twice as fast as PCIe Gen 4. Also on the gaming side, Lexar is also showcasing its blazing-fast gaming DRAM, Lexar’s new Ares RGB DDR5 memory kits, offering speeds up to 8400MHz, making them amongst the fastest available currently.

What are the trends that might shape the African tech ecosystem in 2024?
The African tech ecosystem is poised for steady growth in 2024 and beyond, especially because of the continent’s young population. The population of Africa will reach an estimated 2 billion in the next 30 years, and currently over 50% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is under 19 years old. Africa is set to benefit immensely as a huge number of youth enter the workforce.

While we expect the slowdown in funding towards sectors such as fintech, logistics, and e-commerce platforms to continue, businesses as a whole, and the tech sector in particular, will grow in resilience. We also believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will see wider application. Beyond its widespread use in large language models, there will be more integration of AI across diverse sectors ranging from payments to health infrastructure.

How important is Africa for your business and what is the volume of business growth you anticipate in this region over the next few years?
Africa is undoubtedly one of the most important markets for Lexar and we are committed to serving the continent with our latest innovations in memory and storage solutions. We at Lexar believe that Africa is the future – thanks mainly to its young, tech-savvy population who are eager and ready to embrace new technologies across spheres.

Over the recent months, we’ve entered into strategic partnerships with key resellers in Africa to ensure that our award-winning products are easily available to consumers in the major markets of Africa.

To what extent can the governments of African countries support and accelerate the continent’s tech industry?
African nations have known for years that technology would be a major driver of economic growth, spurring the need for new regulations and intercontinental collaboration. Reports indicate that Africa could secure tech startup funding of more than $90bn by 2030, if policymakers pursue significant reforms to drive growth. To achieve this goal, governments in Africa need to enable more tech financing, cultivate the business environment and strengthen networks.

Governments should also provide a platform on which investors can access reliable information about tech startups to reduce information asymmetries. The near absence of credible public databases on African startups increases the costs of transactions and due diligence while reducing investor confidence and diminishing financing inflows to tech innovators. Several governments in Africa have already taken decisive measures to support and accelerate the tech sector and facilitate intellectual property protections, funding access and other incentives to new businesses.

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities of doing business in Africa?
Africa is home to some of the fastest-growing economies and consumer markets in the world, and in recent years Africa’s household consumption has grown faster than its gross domestic product (GDP) —and has even outpaced the global average GDP growth rate. Considering the increasing affluence, population growth, urbanisation rates, and rapid spread of access to the Internet and mobile phones on the continent, Africa’s burgeoning economies present exciting opportunities for growth and expansion in a range of sectors.

However, Africa also has its share of challenges – from finding skilled labour, lack of access to consistent electricity, high cost of securing capital to difficult regulatory landscapes and supply chain challenges. Africa serves as a realm of promising opportunities intermingled with formidable challenges. Businesses that embark on this transformative journey, fortified by strategic insights and a resolute spirit, can carve out success stories, which is precisely what Lexar is focused on achieving.

What industry verticals in Africa are you targeting and why?
Gaming in particular is a segment Lexar is looking to tap into given its immense potential in Morocco and beyond. Young Moroccan consumers have begun to recognise the importance of reliable hardware that will also allow them to upgrade as the need arises, and portable data storage products are a vital part of this mix. As an industry, it is therefore equally important that we continue to innovate and address emerging market requirements.

Global funds have invested massively in African startups recently. How do you see the market behaving in the next five years and in which ways that will influence the investments in the region?
In the broad context of global innovation and entrepreneurship, Africa’s startup ecosystem emerged as a beacon of promise and potential. Over the past decade, the African continent witnessed a major surge in entrepreneurial dynamism. This has created a vibrant mix of innovation-driven companies that have captivated investors, markets, and the world’s attention. Although there was a slowdown in funding from last year due to various factors, the key for startups in the coming years is resilience.

Despite facing adversities, African startups are debunking the myth that growth is the sole metric of success. They are proving that creativity, community, and strategic decision-making are indispensable elements not only for survival but also for thriving in the face of challenging economic circumstances. What truly matters is the ability of startups to weather the storm and emerge stronger in the subsequent phases. The African Startup Ecosystem is currently in its nascent stages and is still poised to grow significantly in the coming years.

Have you noticed an increase in the availability of technical skills and young talent in Africa recently due to the tech industry expansion? In which ways has this impacted the companies in the region?
Yes, we are seeing increased availability of technical skills and young talent in Africa. According to a study of software developers in Africa conducted in 2021, there are just over 700,000 software developers on the continent, and this number has been rising steadily. Moreover, according to a report by the World Economic Forum, Africa’s youth population is set to double by 2030, making up 42% of the world’s youth population.

Additionally, African countries are investing heavily in building a robust digital economy and creating supportive ecosystems for startups and tech companies. We believe that Africa is emerging as a promising destination for companies looking to expand their talent pool with its rapidly growing tech ecosystem and a pool of highly skilled developers. However, there are still areas that need increased focus as far as talent is concerned. For instance, there is a major shortage of AI-related talent in Africa, and governments across the continent need to step in to find a solution. A good starting point would be for African governments to invest in university AI programs.