Very often it is being said that Africa is the rich continent with poor people. This statement is very true to a certain extent. Though the Africa’s growth rate has been sluggish, but looking and analyzing the market and economic conditions, it could be clearly depicted that in the coming years Africa’s growth rate would take hike. Even though the social and political turmoil, wars, natural disasters, and poor policies have been affecting the growth rate of Africa, still the prospects for consumer-facing companies are bright. If we talk about the figures of consumer expenditure then the breakup would be like:
Spent $$860 billion on goods and services in 2008, 35% more than the $635 billion that of Indians and $821 billion that of Russia. With the growing and progressing economy of Africa, a new horizon of endless business opportunities for potential investors and corporate houses is springing up.
Telecommunications, real estate and infrastructure, banking, automotive, retailing, and education related opportunities are going to bloom up. According to a survey, telecom companies in Africa have added 316 million subscribers, more than the entire population of the USA since 2000. African governments are invigorating the association with buyers from countries like India and China, where buyers could provide up-front payments, invest in the infrastructure and real estate, share the managerial skills and technological knowledge, and the educational knowledge. Africa is gifted by nature with the plentiful of riches such as 10% of the world’s oil reserve, 40% of its gold ore, and 80%-90% of its chromium and platinum group metals deposits.
More and more number of entrepreneurs have started showing keen interest in the African market, because of the several untapped and unexplored business opportunities it offers.
However, before stepping into these opportunities, a well-directed research work needs to be done. It is a universally acknowledged fact that “patience is the key to success”. The approach for diving into the waves of these endless opportunities should be combination of proper research and development study and the analysis of recent market trends. Entrepreneurs from across the globe are interested in exploring the realm of this endless fruitful opportunities. With the remarkably increasing population, Africa is the upcoming biggest markets through which potential businessmen, investors and entrepreneurs could procure lucrative returns which would not only provide them pecuniary benefits, but would also benefit the people of Africa by boosting up the economy.
The facts given out by the World Bank in a survey states that 35 of 47 economies in sub-Saharan Africa took at least one step in making it easier to do business in their country in 2015. Some of the remarkable changes are: Implementation of credit scoring service in Rwanda; Madagascar strengthened minority-investor protections; launching of a government-run company registration services; and Equatorial Guinea took the registration procedure for new businesses from 16+ steps down to four, and the processing time from 120+ days to 10.
Booming sectors
Technology is blooming, helping the continent through multiple ways including lowering down the cost of automation, digitization of economy that could leapfrog companies in sectors such as retail and wholesale, opening up new markets. A major example of this is the emergence of mobile money. But this is not confined just to retail and wholesale. There is constant increase in demand for B2B services over an extensive array of diversified markets.
With an alarmingly increasing rate of population, sectors like construction and housing would certainly bloom up in Africa, hence leading to the increased demand of building materials and various metals. The automotive industry is also expanding vastly, thus giving rise to the increased demand in automobile spare parts, tyres and different kinds of automobile oils
Increasing population, increasing consumer goods demand
The tremendous increase of population rate in turn is leading to higher demand of consumer goods. The consumer is making specific demands – good quality combined with affordable prices and products tailored to its environments. The growth of consumer goods market in Africa could indeed be termed as the ‘Pioneer of socioeconomic revolution’. Going by the facts, the Africa was home to more than 1billion consumers in 2010 which is projected to reach 1.3 billion by 2030. Consumer expenditure is also pacing up. It was worth $600 billion in 2010, representing 8% of consumer spending in the emerging markets. It will be worth as much as $1 trillion by 2020.
Africa is not only on the verge of revolution, but also thriving up to develop and get enlisted in the list of developed countries. It is not the new market for business, but also of hopes and expectations. The invasion of entrepreneurs and businesses would not only provide fruitful monetary consequences to the investors, but would also serve as the tool for development of the continent and its people.
