COUNTRY FOCUS: MOROCCO
OMA Emirates in Morocco
The annual Cartes Afrique conference held in Marrakech, Morocco
I
n April 2017, UAE-based OMA
Emirates and its Moroccan
subsidiary BRS participated as
Silver Sponsors at the Cartes Afrique
Conference in Marrakech, Morocco.
Each year the event has more than
800 payment industry professionals
from Francophone Africa and covers
topics such as: payment technologies,
mobility, identification and e-gov.
Participating for the first time, OMA
Emirates marked its presence as a
leader in the field, attracting attention
from industry experts and the media.
highlights the continuing importance of
basic mobile communications in many
parts of Africa, particularly in rural areas.
The smartphone markets in Morocco
and Algeria performed poorly in Q1
2017, although the QoQ declines
were much less drastic. Morocco’s
economy was significantly impacted
by a stalemate in the government
that is delaying the disbursement
of budgetary funds, while Algeria’s
unstable politics continue to dampen
consumer willingness to make
discretionary purchases.
Showcasing the payment solutions
for the African market, OMA Emirates
garnered the interest of banks and
financial institution representatives
who visited the booth to discuss and
discover the company’s solutions
such as Nano Switch, NanoPerso,
Easy ATM, Easy Reconcile, amongst
others. OMA Emirates meet-and-
greet event at the exhibition had
many African leaders to discuss
possible partnerships and prospective
business projects in Africa.
second place in the smartphone market,
thanks to its diversified portfolio of mid-
range phones and strong focus on the
sub $150 price segment. In the feature
phone space however, it is Transsion that
dominates not Samsung, with its Tecno
and itel brands accounting for three out
of every five feature phones shipped
across the continent in Q1 2017.
In IDC’s 2016 Health Insights CIO
poll including Morocco and other key
African and Middle East countries, the
survey results show that managing IT
governance and regulatory compliance,
meeting the growing expectations of IT
users and patients, obtaining budgets
for IT investments, and finding the
workforce for emerging technologies are
the ongoing challenges for healthcare
CIOs in the region. As for managing
IT security, the key challenges include
budget constraints and staff-related
issues that range from a lack of qualified
personnel to poor adherence to security
policies by employees.
Analytic technologies are clearly
gaining traction amongst surveyed
organisations. Analytics including
business intelligence were perceived
as the most important in terms of
supporting digital transformation,
followed by mobile technologies.
Among applications, analytic solutions
represent the top investment priority for
the next two years, including business
intelligence tools and applications that
are based on mobile platforms.
Excerpted from ICT Competitiveness
in Africa from eTransformAfrica.org,
authored by Javier Ewing, Nicholas
Chevrolier, Matthijs Leenderste,
Maryanna Quigless, Thomas Verghese;
and ICT Competitiveness in Africa by
the World Bank, African Development
Bank and African Union, and authored
by Javier Ewing, Nicolas Chevrollier,
Maryanna Quigless, Thomas Verghese,
Matthijs Leenderste. n
In terms of vendor rankings, Samsung
remains the continent’s leading
smartphone vendor. Its big rival in Africa,
the China-based Transsion group, took
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