Record numbers expected at Africa’s annual congress for the telecoms industry

The show already has 4200 pre-registered participants

The 12th annual AfricaCom Conference and Exhibition opens its doors on Wednesday at the Cape Town International Conference Centre for the annual gathering of Africa's telecommunications leaders. This is expected to be the biggest show to date with 4200 pre-registered participants (20% up on 2008) from 110 countries, with 224 different operator companies represented.

AfricaCom is the annual meeting place for all stakeholders in the continent's telecoms market (operators, regulators, suppliers, investors, analysts) to learn about the latest trends, to share their experiences, to network and to do business.

The event comprises:

 

• a high-level strategic conference with 75 expert speakers (including a record 30 operators at C-level) and a multi-streamed conference programme covering all the strategic issues faced by Africa's telecommunications stakeholders;
• a 200-stand exhibition representing the whole telecom ecosystem: large equipment manufacturers, local infrastructure solutions vendors, operators, wholesale carriers, satellite service providers, OSS/BSS vendors, call centre solutions, green solutions vendors, and more
• the AfricaCom Awards, recognising excellence in Africa's telecommunications, celebrated with a gala dinner hosted by comedian David Kau, with a special appearance by singer and broadcaster Yvonne Chaka Chaka represented the event's official charity Unicef

AfricaCom is the annual meeting place for all stakeholders in the continent's telecoms market

As the global economic situation has been a major concern in the business world this year, the event will provide a forum to discuss the status of the telecommunications sector on the continent, which has shown great resilience and continued growth under challenging conditions. "The event's theme this year in ‘Sustaining growth in Africa's communications markets', and our objective is to provide telecoms professionals with a forum where they can share their experiences and work together to make the most of the great opportunities in the market", says Julie Rey, Research Director at Informa Telecoms & Media, organiser of the event.

The event is supported by some of the biggest names in the market, from leading operator groups (MTN, Zain, Vodacom, Orange, Etisalat and more) to equipment vendors and telecom solutions suppliers - the event is sponsored by  PCCI, ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Intelsat, Telecom Italia Sparkle, VNL, Alcatel-Lucent, EADS Astrium, Oracle, MTN, Alvarion, Comviva, ECI, Upstream, Gemalto, Harris Stratex, Opera Software, Celcite, Telenor, Motorola, Belgacom, Convergys, Acision, Oberthur, Turkkule, Omnitele, Smarttrust, Qualcomm, and Intivation.