Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Ben Leo: The fast-growing consumer potential of Africa’s secondary cities

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Consumer-focused companies in Africa typically limit their focus to a
handful of national capitals or major cities. This approach is
understandable, given that these urban centres are dynamic economic and
population hubs. Outside of these first-tier cities, actionable information
becomes scarcer – and yet there are significant opportunities, particularly
for companies looking to claim first-mover advantage for their specific
product or service.

Rural markets should never be overlooked for this reason, but there is
another critical opportunity: the fast-growing consumer potential of
Africa’s secondary cities. What defines a secondary city varies by study but
a good ballpark description is a city with a population that is 10 to 50% of
the nation’s biggest city – often falling in the bracket of 500,000 to 3
million inhabitants today – and one which is largely unknown outside of its
country’s borders. For example, everyone is familiar with Lagos, but are
they aware of Aba, in the southeast of Nigeria? This commercial centre is
home to one of Africa’s top 50 concentrations of moneyed consumers, with the
disposable income to purchase premium products.

As of 2017, there were 2,400 burgeoning second-tier or intermediate cities
worldwide, with nearly two-thirds in Africa and Asia. Why this matters for
business is that these urban centres, not their more famous counterparts,
are expanding massively in population and economic production, increasingly
absorbing the urbanising masses who desire a better quality of life than
they could potentially find in their capitals. In fact, worldwide, many
second-tier cities are outperforming primary urban hubs in GDP growth, with
sociologist Saskia Sassen insisting secondary cities “can be a global
platform for companies’ global expansion”.

The big question for businesses is how to tap this potential. Secondary
cities have their own problems to overcome, such as infrastructure
limitations in the face of rapid growth, but from an onlooker’s perspective
the greatest barrier is a lack of market information about them.
Fortunately, advances in digital data analysis are helping to overcome this
obstacle, producing area-specific, relevant insights that penetrate much
deeper than often unreliable commentary on consumer trends found at a
national level.

How geospatial data analytics pinpoints promise

As an example of how this approach works, Fraym set out to identify
consumers with the most purchasing power in Kenya – and specifically outside
of Nairobi, the obvious centre for consumer activity in the country.

By weaving together satellite imagery with multiple data sources (including
surveys, mobile data and remote sensing data), and then applying machine
learning algorithms to these layers of information, it was possible to find
a significant number of top-tier consumers in Kisumu, Eldoret, Mombasa and
Nakuru. Further building on this insight, Eldoret, which is the capital of
Uasin Gishu county and one of the largest cities in the country, stands out
with a consumer class that is 210 000 strong.



The geospatial core of the analysis means findings can be probed further,
zooming in all the way to a neighbourhood level to identify consumer
hotspots for an area as small as 1km2. This opens the door to evaluating
specific site locations for their proximity to potential customers. Using
Fraym’s Kenyan example again, it was possible to assess Eldoret’s Zion Mall
as an appealing retail location based on drive times. Our findings? About
180 000 ABC1 consumers reside within a 15-minute drive of the mall, making
it a highly desirable location for companies selling higher-end goods to
more affluent Kenyans.



The point is that, even as African markets become ever-more competitive and
crowded, with a data-centred expansion strategy it is possible to push into
new markets while minimising risk. Companies often focus their attention on
national capitals and other dominant cities, leaving promising, unsaturated
markets in secondary cities and elsewhere untapped.

Ben Leo is the CEO of Fraym and previous director of Africa Affairs for the
White House.  --Howwemadeitinafrica 



Ben Leo, CEO of Fraym

 

 

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