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Nigerian businesses overcome woes to lead FT-Statista ranking - FT
Fast-growing companies thrive despite high inflation, chronic shortage of dollars and difficulties accessing foreign investment
From fledgling start-ups to established powerhouses, Nigerian businesses dominate the second edition of the FT-Statista 2023 annual ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies. Six of the top 20 companies on the list are from Nigeria, with their operations ranging from financial services to real estate and retail.
Top of the pile is AFEX, an Abuja-based brokerage that helps farmers to sell, and large companies to buy, agricultural commodities. AFEX, which was in third place on the list in 2022, expanded its operations into Kenya and Uganda in the past year.
The healthy performance of Nigerian companies should come as no surprise, says Eloho Omame, partner at TLcom, a venture capital firm investing in tech-enabled businesses across the continent.
Omame says Nigeria’s youthful population — the median age of its 221mn people is 18 — means there is a huge cohort that is beginning to consume goods and services for the first time, and to interact with the digital products that are solving problems across a range of sectors.https://www.ft.com/content/c23...
