Cracking the Africa Code: The functional path to market leadership

The research shows a formula where functional excellence provides the foundation for trust and cultural resonance, which enables emotional connection and ultimately drives market leadership. 

This sequence, decoded from 37.9-million interviews across five regions, 142 countries and 175 categories, explains why MTN scaled to 300-million subscribers, why M-Pesa processes more transactions than many global banks, and why local champions consistently outmanoeuvre international giants. The findings provide marketers with an empirically validated blueprint for brand success in Africa. 

The problem is not what you think it is 

With 35.5% of Africa’s population under the poverty line (6.8 times higher than the global average) it is easy to assume that the biggest obstacle that prevents people being able to buy what they want is price, i.e. where brands, products or services are too expensive. 

The data tells a different story. In Africa, ‘price’ ranks only fourth among purchase barriers at 10.5%, compared to ‘accessibility’ at 28% and ‘product range’ at 22%. Woolworths’ Nigerian exit exemplifies this – the disconnect wasn’t about pricing, rather it was about shopping behaviour. Meanwhile, Shoprite thrived in southern Africa by understanding shopping as a social activity requiring frequent, convenient access. 

Accessibility, the most prevalent barrier, means not finding desired brands instore or online. Product range, ranked second, involves missing formats, variants, or pack sizes. These two barriers rank first and second across all five African regions studied. 

While other regions of the world primarily grapple with accessibility, product range and price, African consumers face deeper challenges that operate at the trust level: precisely where Africa differs most from global markets. Africa’s third-ranked barrier revealed unexpected nuances.  

At a high of 15% in 2025, ‘other barriers’ encompass complexity and usability issues, inadequate support, service failures, and credibility and transparency gaps. 

You can read more about the paper, presented at the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research’s first conference in Africa by Catherine Burton and Kim Larsen (Ipsos) and Rhulani Baloyi (MTN) in the latest issue (Issue 1 2026) of Strategic Marketing for Africa – the voice of African marketing and the official publication of the African Marketing Confederation (AMC). Find it online here. A Print Edition will be available shortly.