Africa is clearly ripe with business opportunities and is home to many fast-growing companies in a variety of sectors—not just resources, but also financial services, food and agri-processing, manufacturing, telecommunications, and retail. Yet compared with other emerging regions, we find that Africa is still heavily underrepresented in both the number and size of large companies. This matters because, in any economy, large firms are the primary drivers of growth, investment, corporate tax contributions, exports, and productivity.
The reality is that South Africa is indeed Africa in this game. It hosts 49% of Africa’s largest companies. Nigeria has only 9%.