It appears that Nigeria made a good impression on Mark Zuckerberg when he visited the country back in 2016, because the ubiquitous social network mammoth, Facebook – which has over 2.7 billion users worldwide, announced that they will be opening up an office in Lagos Nigeria.
This is massive news and this move is poised to directly impact the tech scene in Nigeria and in Africa more broadly.
This will be Facebook’s second office in Africa since it launched its first in South Africa in 2015. The exact location in Lagos is yet to be determined, but the search is underway and the office is slated to be operational in the back half of 2021.
Nigeria is the obvious choice for the social juggernauts attempt to foray further into the African market, and Facebook has stated that the next 1 billion users will come from the Middle East and Africa.
Nigeria has a large pool of relatively untapped talent that can be recruited to expand into markets that are emerging and awakening to the digital and internet scene.
“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. 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. We look forward to contributing further to the African tech ecosystem.”
– Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Head of New Product Experimentation ( Credit Facebook Press Release)
The Lagos office will be home to the companies first team of engineers on the continent and will also house other teams including sales, policy, communications, and partnerships. This move shows Facebook’s dedication to investment in the African continent and they know that the upside and potential pay off is limitless.
In 2018 Facebook opened a community hub in Lagos (NG_HUB) in partnership with Cc Hub, which created a space to help small and medium-sized businesses in the region to grow by giving them access to resources and training opportunities.
We look forward to visiting the office when it opens as Facebook is known for creating some of the most unique, functional, and aesthetically pleasing work-spaces in the world.
