Why am I so excited about an African hair style app released on smartphones?
Darling, the pan African hair extension brand owned by Godrej of India, has just released an app in Nigeria aimed at helping customers choose their latest hair style on their smartphone. The implications are enormous, imho. Mobiles are ubiquitious. E-commerce in Nigeria is becoming commonplace. Smartphones are default. The African consumer market is sophisticated in […]
Global consumer data shows demographics have changed completely
The past half decade‘s worth of financial crises and increasing scarcity of resources have led to an increasing equalization in the global water level. Instead of the high tide that would lift all boats, the leveling off of growth is leading to an entirely different equation of purchasing power parity. Tomorrow’s equilibrium seems to imply […]
New data shows “middle class” label misleading; skews market analysis
Anyone familiar with the literature and handwringing around the size of the African middle class that’s an ongoing sidebar to the emergence of the continent’s economies, will appreciate the FT’s analysis of recent research results. The global middle class is both smaller and poorer than previously thought, according to a new study, with hundreds of […]
The business model of drinking water in urban Ghana
In Accra, Ghana, packaging potable water into single serve sachets for the mass market (the prepaid economy) is a business model that has evolved extremely rapidly in response to customer demand and purchasing power. Bottled mineral water for the elite trickled down in quantity and form until the man on the street can buy a […]
Africa’s world trade: Informal economies and globalization from below by Margaret C. Lee
The entire text of Professor Margeret C. Lee’s work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence. Clicking on the cover will take you directly to the PDF. Chapter 3 takes the reader through a journey to different countries of Africa, including Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, […]
Leapfrogging the cookstove
Take a closer look at those LPG (cooking gas) cylinders stacked around the pole, displayed for sale. The small ones on top have a rough and ready metal fitting attached to them which converts them into stoves. However, you’ll note in the delivery cart that these small cylinders are without the addition. This makes me […]
Les entreprises nigérianes à l’épreuve de l’évaluation des consommateurs
Les nigérians viennent de faire un pas important vers l’amélioration de l’expérience d’achat dans le pays. A mon avis, lorsqu’on taxe les gouvernements de mauvaise gouvernance, on devrait également taxer les entreprises opérant en Afrique de manque de considération (parfois totale) pour le client. Ca peut être dû à une combinaison de manque de compétition […]
Retail ranking metrics vs Readiness for formal retail #AfricanConsumerMarket
Continuing the thoughts expressed by Yacine in the previous post, I’d like to explore these rankings and their value. We’ll use the example of Tanzania, ranked 5th by AT Kearney in their 2015 African Retail Attractiveness Index (ARDI). The ARDI states: Tanzania is starting from a low base: With only 30 percent urbanization, high poverty […]
Où se trouvent les plus grands consommateurs en Afrique?
Proud to introduce our newest contributor, Ms Yacine Bio-Tchane of Cotonou, Benin. She will be writing on the business perspective from Francophone Africa, mostly in French. If you’d like to see a post translated, leave us a comment! Une récente étude de la firme de conseil A.T. Kearney a classé 48 pays africains selon leur […]
First world trends: Financial inclusion, the unbanked, and the prepaid business model
The Economist explains just how expensive banking can be for the lower income population, even in the United States. Financial inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked must include cost/benefit analysis based on the limitations of income streams of those whom they hope to serve. The cost of ownership is often overlooked in current day literature, […]
