Africa is leapfrogging into the future of retail

Africa is leapfrogging into the future of retail

The bi-annual Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), which is a study of the global retailing landscape has revealed Africa is poised to move away from traditional retail models and become the fastest-growing, richest, and most sophisticated market in the world.

Prashaen Reddy, a partner at management consulting firm Kearney says that this is thanks to the explosive growth of young, urban, and digitally savvy consumers; increasing mobile phone penetration; the creation of digital payment and shopping networks; favorable governmental regulations and spending initiatives; and significant investment by both foreign and domestic companies.

In the most stable times, retailers expanding their global footprint face a series of difficult decisions. Yet in the wake of COVID-19, together, these forces are transforming the face of African retailing and providing a blueprint for the development of other emerging markets, seeing Morocco, Egypt and Ghana making the top 10.

Determining which markets are growing, attractive, and relatively risk-free is one of the goals of Kearney’s GRDI which ranks 35 emerging countries based on a set of 26 factors, including four key variables: country risk, market attractiveness, market saturation, and sales growth.

Questions GRDI asked were, should retail enter new markets? Expand their operations in emerging nations that may or