Facebook to open an office in Lagos by 2021

Social media and tech giant Facebook, last summer said it has plans to open a new office in Lagos, Nigeria.

“As part of our ongoing investments in Africa, today, we announced we’re opening a new Facebook office in Lagos, Nigeria,” the company wrote on its website.

The tech giant representative said that the Lagos office will be home to several teams including Sales, Partnerships, Policy, and Communications. The office will also become the first in Africa with a team of engineers. It will support the Sub-Saharan region and is slated to launch on H2 2021.

“The opening of our new office in Lagos, Nigeria presents new and exciting opportunities in digital innovations to be developed from the continent and taken to the rest of the world,” said Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Head of New Product Experimentation. “All across Africa we’re seeing immense talent in the tech ecosystem, and I’m proud that with the upcoming opening of our new office, we’ll be building products for the future of Africa, and the rest of the world, with Africans at the helm.

The Lagos office follows the opening of Facebook’s NG_Hub, its first community hub space in Africa in collaboration with CcHub. In 2019, the company opened its Small Business Group (SBG) Operations Center in Lagos, in partnership with Teleperformance. The SBG office supports small and medium businesses across the Sub-Saharan region through community programs and marketing programs to help SMBs speed up growth and the development of their businesses.

Facebook opened its first office in Africa in 2015 and has made several investments in the tech ecosystem across the continent, since then.

“We’re delighted to be announcing our new office in Nigeria. Five years on from opening our first office on the continent in Johannesburg, South Africa, we’re continuing to invest in and support local talent, as well as the various communities that use our platforms,” Nunu Ntshingila, Regional Director, Facebook Africa. “The office in Lagos will also be key in helping to expand how we service our clients across the continent.”

Through its investments, the company has provided reliable connectivity infrastructures and has helped businesses grown locally, regionally, and globally. Some of which include its SMB Grants program in Nigeria and South Africa which combined cash and ad credits to support over 900 small businesses impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The company also launched a subsea cable project called 2Africa, the largest in the world. The project was created to deliver higher internet capacity and reliability across Africa. Facebook also has ongoing training programs that support students, SMBs, digital creatives, female entrepreneurs, start-ups and developers, across Africa.