How Market Research is Helping Companies Succeed in Africa’s Multi-Faceted Market

An introduction to the African Market

The African continent is the fastest-growing consumer market in the world and a great location for business investment due to its favorable climatic conditions, natural resources, wildlife, and improved governmental policies.

• Africa is home to one of the world's most multi-faceted market structures, with developed markets such as Libya and a few completely undeveloped markets such as Somalia and Ethiopia. Even in the most developed nations of Africa, there are infrastructure issues.
• Major industries that are thriving in Africa depend heavily on natural resources. Two of the fastest-growing industry sectors are Agriculture and Mining. The climate in the region is ideal to support the growth of cash crops. African chocolate products are highly sought-after around the world.
• Other industries like the Banking & Finance industry and the manufacturing sector are expanding rapidly or have the potential to expand at a rapid rate in the near future.
• Despite the large number of people living there and the increasing consumer class, many African countries are struggling to develop their economies sufficiently to meet the needs of their rapidly growing population.
• Africans face a variety of challenges like inadequate infrastructure, incompatible access to technology, and a reliance on informal trade to market goods which makes the African landscape the way it is currently.

Importance of Market Research

To gain a better understanding of whether your products or services will be accepted by consumers, you must know the preferences of the audience that you are targeting. Market research provides decision-makers with important information about your competitors and existing products. The research enables you to take decisions about what it would take to succeed in the market. This is why organizations base their business decisions such as marketing and sales strategy on good market research.

With market research data, you can focus on areas that will prove to be the most effective for your business. When you know what your customers want, you can use your resources to reach them most effectively, with less risk of wasting time, money, and marketing efforts that don’t work.

The records of your consumers can provide plenty of information, such as buying behavior, most selling products in different demographic segments, etc. These trends help you assess how the market may change and what should you do in order to maintain your position in the market.

Businesses that are successfully operating in Africa and around the world regularly conduct market research to be aware of emerging market trends and maintain a competitive edge. No matter if your business is at an early stage or the expansion phase it is crucial to conduct market research to know the essential aspects of your market in order to boost sales revenues, profits, and ROI, as well as overall growth in Africa.

Market research is among the most effective tools available to know your customers. It provides you with facts that you can utilize to guide your marketing strategy that makes both selling and marketing easier and more efficient.

Research Methodology

Our market research services provide a suite of solutions that meets the research needs of companies within and outside Africa. We provide cost-effective, accurate, and insightful business intelligence to our clients within tight time frames.

We provide full-service market research services in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Rest of Africa.

RationalStat has developed a state-of-the-art research methodology to crunch numbers and provide the best possible real-time insights to clients. We combine a varied range of industry experience, data analytics, and experts’ viewpoint to create a research methodology for market sizing and forecasting.

RationalStat combines a mix of secondary sources as well as primary research to assess the market size and develop a forecast. Key steps involved in accurately deriving the market numbers are:

• Defining the problem by understanding the type of market and data required by the client.
• Data gathering and collection through relevant paid databases, publicly available sources, company reports, annual reports, surveys, and interviews.
• Formulating a hypothesis to create market numbers, forecasts, influencing factors, and their relevance.
• Evaluating and analyzing the data by referring to data sources utilized and leveraged.
• Validating, interpreting, and finalizing the data by combining the details gathered from primary and secondary sources with the help of experienced analysts.

Secondary Sources

• Annual reports, company filings, investor presentations, product catalogs, and company documents
• Industry and market-related documents available in the public domain
• Paid databases including Bloomberg, Factiva, S&P Capital IQ, FactSet, Refinitiv Eikon, ICIS, EUWID, and Thomson Reuters, among others
• Whitepapers, research papers, and industry blogs.

Primary Intelligence and Research

• Based on extensive interviews, surveys, and discussions with Africa-based stakeholders and participants.
• Network of more than 6,000 industry consultants, experts, trade partners, data aggregators, and market research companies.

How is RationalStat helping companies to tap into Africa’s 1 Billion Consumers?

The middle class of Africa has grown steadily with its economies. However, income inequality remains extremely high all across Africa. Although there is evidence that the African middle class has been increasing overall, however, their purchasing power is not as great as other countries. The African Development Bank (AfDB) defines as the African middle class to be the one who spends between US$2 and $20 every day, in buying power parity (PPP) in terms. However, this group of consumers is largely underserved, providing international businesses with the chance to meet their changing and increasing demands.

RationalStat is providing companies with the go-to-market strategy for tapping into the African market. For consumer goods companies, for instance, formerly aiming at the rich can start changing their product offerings to suit the needs of the expanding middle-class.

We strive to become the most trusted and leading partner for our clients globally in market intelligence. We provide solutions to organizations around the world. As a leader in Africa, we understand the continents' people and markets – in and out.

With our self-service platform our clients can leverage consumer data on a large scale, identifying early indicators of changes in the market and discover market-creating opportunities to their businesses.​

Prominent Countries Covered in Market Research and Intelligence by RationalStat

The African continent is an ideal region for business and economic investments and has progressive economic potential.  Market Research and business research by RationalStat identify new opportunities and provides data, insights, and strategies to grow business in Africa. African markets are difficult and incur significant time to conduct research due to a lack of communications & technology, poor infrastructure, and diverse cultures. Thus, RationalStat with a strong presence in the region provides ready-made and customized market intelligence and market data.

African Countries: including East Africa, South Africa, North Africa, and Western & Central Africa

• Market Research and Intelligence in Egypt
• Market Research and Intelligence in Nigeria
• Market Research and Intelligence in Tanzania
• Market Research and Intelligence in South Africa
• Market Research and Intelligence in Kenya
• Market Research and Intelligence in Uganda
• Market Research and Intelligence in Ivory Coast
• Market Research and Intelligence in Ghana
• Market Research and Intelligence in Burundi
• Market Research and Intelligence in Ethiopia
• Market Research and Intelligence in Congo
• Market Research and Intelligence in Morocco
• Market Research and Intelligence in Sudan
• Market Research and Intelligence in Cameroon
• Market Research and Intelligence in Zimbabwe
• Market Research and Intelligence in Zambia
• Market Research and Intelligence in Botswana
• Market Research and Intelligence in Namibia
• Market Research and Intelligence in Rest of Africa

Ever-growing Need for Market Research in Africa

Africa is among the most rapidly growing consumer markets in the world. Consumption by households has grown even more quickly than the country's gross domestic production (GDP) in recent times. In addition, that increase in the GDP per annum has always exceeded the average for the entire world.

In 2030, the biggest market for consumers will include Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa. There are also profitable opportunities in Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Tanzania in addition to other African countries. For instance, Ethiopia has been reported to be among the most rapidly growing economies in the world in the last decade and has an average annual growth in GDP of 10.5 percent between 2005-06 and 2015-16.

About RationalStat LLC

RationalStat is an end-to-end global market intelligence and consulting company that provides comprehensive market research reports along with customized strategy and consulting studies.  The company has sales offices in India, Mexico, and the US to support global and diversified businesses. The company has over 80 consultants and industry experts, developing more than 850 market research and industry reports for its report store annually.

RationalStat has strategic partnerships with leading data analytics and consumer research companies to cater to the client’s needs. Additional services offered by the company include consumer research, country reports, risk reports, procurement intelligence, data analytics, and analytical dashboards. `

RationalStat provides market research reports on various industries in Thailand and South East Asia such as information and communications technology, cloud services, data centers, managed security services, 5g services, 5g infrastructure, and IT spending analysis, among others.