In a bid to keep their costs low, Nigerian banks are exploring new options—and Chinese tech giant Huawei is seizing the moment.
Traditionally, Nigerian banks have relied heavily on IBM for storage solutions, an industry standard that has kept Chief Information Officers (CIOs) comfortable in their positions. However, with the rising costs tied to USD-based expenses, many of these banks are now searching for more budget-friendly alternatives. That’s where Huawei has come in, offering competitive pricing and innovative solutions.
Huawei just inked a major deal with United Bank for Africa (UBA), a bank with a market value of ₦803 billion and over 30 million customers. According to sources, Huawei has sold 200 petabytes of storage and cloud solutions to UBA, a deal worth approximately $3 million. This follows similar deals Huawei has struck with other prominent banks like Zenith Bank, Fidelity, First Bank, and Opay.
UBA’s storage needs have been growing fast, and with their existing storage almost at capacity, they faced the expensive reality of expanding. Historically, UBA has used IBM’s storage solutions and VMWare for virtualization. But when VMWare switched to a subscription model after its acquisition by Broadcom, costs nearly tripled—forcing UBA to look for cheaper alternatives.
Huawei’s solution? Attractive discounts, lower prices, and a special one-year, free-to-use trial offer that has been a game-changer for banks looking to cut down on costs. “Nobody else offers you a full year of proof-of-concept,” said one cloud engineer from a major bank.
While Huawei is gaining ground, it hasn’t completely dethroned IBM just yet. Security concerns and data privacy issues still loom large for Nigerian banks, which means many of them are still cautious about relying solely on Huawei for critical operations. In fact, some banks plan to keep using IBM for key workloads for the foreseeable future.
But Huawei’s footprint in the Nigerian banking industry is growing. Sources say the company is already in talks with another tier-1 bank to provide cloud storage services. As the cost-cutting trend continues, Huawei’s presence is likely to expand further, positioning it as a serious contender in the space traditionally dominated by IBM.
