Sonus eyes expansion into Africa

People and traffic move along a busy street in Lagos, Nigeria, May 24, 2005.

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Sonus Networks (SONS.O), a supplier of next-generation IP voice and multimedia services, is eyeing growth opportunities in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, the company said on Tuesday.

"We are looking at (expanding into) the whole of Africa," Tim Ward, senior director business development for Europe, Middle East & Africa at Sonus Networks, told Reuters in an interview.

"We have identified three hotspots in Africa: South Africa, in west Africa Nigeria and in east Africa Kenya," said Ward, who was given the task this year of establishing relationships in Middle East and Africa.

The market for next-generation communications was expanding in Africa and Sonus Networks would like to be part of the growing market.

Ward said the three identified key markets in Africa of South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria would be used by the company to expand into other markets in the continent.

He added the company was interested in creating partnership with emerging telecom players in Africa such as Kuwait-based Mobile Telecommunications Co (Zain) (ZAIN.KW), South Africa"s MTN Group (MTNJ.J) and other big operators.

"We are putting our focus on all the major operators."

Sonus Networks operates successfully in North America, Japan and recently in Europe. As part of its growth strategy its aiming to enter the African telecoms market, which are expected to seek new communications solutions.

Sonus Networks' voice infrastructure products enable wireline and wireless operators to build converged voice over IP (VoIP) networks.

(Editing by Quentin Bryar)