Australia’s largest commercial weather information provider, WeatherZone plans to make more acquisitions in Africa this year after it bought out South Africa-based AfricaWeather that services  top companies listed on the continent’s largest exchange, Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Weatherzone, which is majority owned by Fairfax Media — the publisher of South Africa’s BusinessDay and The Australian Financial Review, said it will use AfricaWeather’s expertise and technology to expand into other African countries.

“The reason we invested in the South African company is Africa has attracted a large amount of global investment. It’s a resource-rich environment and it’s seen as one of the future growth opportunities,” Weatherzone managing director Charles Solomon said in a statement.

“There’s a lot of focus on growth as a result of raw materials but it’s also a huge consumer market, which is pretty much underserved at the moment by commercial weather companies and therefore represents a good growth opportunity for us,” he added.

Weather data is critical to Africa’s prosperity, as crop productivity and food security pivot on the weather. These numbers could help create early warning systems for floods and droughts, which not only benefits smallholder farmers but also the companies that insure or do business with them.

Understanding climate data can also help eliminate diseases like malaria and cholera, and improve the efficiency of economic sectors such as transport and tourism.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), there are less than 200 automatic weather stations in Africa that meet their observation requirements and more than 70 per cent of countries on the continent have “poor or obsolete” infrastructure for measuring atmospheric water changes.

AfricaWeather services 17 of the top 40 companies in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, spanning different industries such as media, aviation, insurance and mining.

The Australian company, which also provide weather graphics in Japan, said the African purchase was internally funded, but did not specify exactly how much it paid for the deal.

“AfricaWeather is a like-minded business and we’ll work together to leverage our combined expertise in our common industries of mining, aviation, utilities and weather information syndication,” Mr Solomon said.