Facebook Adds Wifi Hotspots to Sustain African Growth
- Social network has 170 million Africa users, up 42% on 2015
- Facebook testing unmanned solar crafts to connect Africans
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Facebook Inc. has increased the number of its African users to 170 million and plans to expand further by adding wifi hotspots and laying fiber-optic cables in a bid to spread its reach outside of developed markets.
The figure is 42 percent higher than when the U.S. social network first opened an African office in 2015, Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing, said in an interview in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The rollout of wifi and free Internet products in Nigeria and Kenya will be done via partnerships with international wireless carriers such as Emirates Telecommunications Group Co., known as Etisalat, and closely held Surf of Kenya and Coollink.ng of Nigeria, she said.