In recent years, with the influx of foreign capital, especially under the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative, Africa’s infrastructure has been continuously improved, and various goods and services have begun to enter the African market. E-commerce in Africa has grown very rapidly in recent years. McKinsey Global Institute predicts that by 2025, 10% of the transaction volume on the African continent will be achieved through e-commerce platforms. At the same time, Africa’s online retail sales will likely reach US$75 billion.
The continuous surge in the urban middle-class population (it is expected that by 2050, the number of middle-class people in Africa will account for 45% of the total population), the continuous improvement of education levels, and especially the popularization of information-based education, are all strong supports for the rapid development of e-commerce in Africa. Africa has a weak industrial base, and the development of e-commerce is providing another possibility for the consumption mode of hundreds of millions of Africans.
Advantages of the development of the African e-commerce market
(I) Rapid growth of mobile Internet users
Global Internet data@ released by We Are Social and Hootsuite in 2018 showed that in 2017, the number of Internet users in Africa increased by more than 20% year-on-year. In addition, nearly 280 million people in Africa use mobile payment. Interestingly, the number of people with bank accounts in Africa is only one-third of the number of people using mobile payment. With the growth of mobile users, the popularity of mobile payment has made online services more popular, and the momentum of online shopping has become increasingly rapid.
(II) Weak industry and high demand for imported products
For a long time, Africa’s industrial level has been extremely backward, and the economic production and people’s daily necessities are basically all dependent on imports. The African region, with a total population of more than 1.2 billion, has an increasing demand for textiles, light industry, watches, clothing, hardware, home appliances, bedding and electronic products. In addition, the gradual promotion and popularization of mobile Internet in African countries has provided opportunities for African countries to promote the development of e-commerce platforms.
(III) People have no habit of saving
Compared with other parts of the world, people in many African countries have long been accustomed to the “low-quality” living conditions, and those who are a little richer will not laugh at others’ poverty. Therefore, they will not think of improving their quality of life by saving money. Because there is no concept of saving money, Africans like to buy daily necessities as soon as they get their wages. Therefore, the sales volume of African retail industry at the beginning of the month is generally higher than that in the middle of the month, and the consumption enthusiasm on weekdays is significantly higher than that on weekends. It can be seen that the consumption capacity of African people is actually not low.
(IV) Few offline retail options and high prices
Yang Tao, the founder of Kilimall, a well-known cross-border e-commerce platform in Africa, once said that one of the main reasons for his creation of Kilimall was that offline shopping in Africa was not only troublesome but also expensive. In Africa, in addition to e-commerce platforms, people have only two choices for shopping. One is to go to supermarkets and large shopping malls, and the other is to go to rural markets similar to China, which is the place where Africans go most. There are two problems here. The things in supermarkets are basically imported from abroad. There are few things to choose from, and the prices are very expensive. For the same product, the retail price in many African countries is almost 3 to 10 times that of China, which is very exaggerated.