Trend Micro opens office in Nigeria

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The African market continues to be a target growth area for this innovative IT security company and after extensive research into business growth opportunities of countries in Africa, it took the strategic decision to start its expansion in the Nigerian region.

"The growth in IT security within the Nigerian region is sitting at a staggering 39%, which is further fuelled by the amount of business reform and the call for compliance from government and the financial sector on businesses within the country," says Ihab Moawad, vice president for Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa at Trend Micro. "These factors are creating a growing appetite amongst businesses for robust security solutions that extend from the mobile device, through the network and into the cloud."

According to Moawad, Nigeria continues to flex its muscle as an economic powerhouse on the continent and recent reports show that it is in fact the biggest and fastest growing region in Africa. In support of Trend Micros' decision, the company has also appointed Redington Gulf as its first official distributor for the region.

Incentives and rebates

As a channel driven business, the company's strategy is to grow and invest in local partners on the ground, while at the same time working through its distributors in the region. The company has already mapped out an aggressive channel strategy that includes a host of incentives and rebates for qualified partners.

"After several key discussions with Redington Gulf we established that our growth aspirations for both East and West Africa are aligned. With Redingtons' existing footprint, strong regional partnerships, understanding of our technologies as well as its investment in training, Redington was the perfect distributor to partner with, as we begin our Nigerian journey," adds Moawad.

From an industry focus, our Deep Discovery and Deep Security solutions are the perfect security fit to companies within the banking, financial services and government sectors, both of which are growing markets within Nigeria.

"Looking ahead we are incredibly excited about the prospects Nigeria hold for Trend Micro as a business, particularly in light of growing and investing into local business through a pervasive multi-tiered distribution and channel strategy. The next step for us after establishing our presence in Nigeria will be to look at expanding into Kenya in 2015. This will complete our initial African goal of having a presence in North, East, South and West Africa," ends Moawad.