FT ranking: Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies 2022

The inaugural FT annual ranking of Africa's Fastest Growing Companies provides a snapshot of corporate landscape in a continent where technology, fintech and support-service businesses have had to adapt to a radically altered environment.

Many African governments have introduced tough restrictions to combat Covid-19. The health impact has been less severe outside of South Africa and parts of north Africa. In crowded urban settings where many live hand to mouth, the economic consequences of lock down have been devastating.

Business trends are already under way because of the Pandemic. From banks to education providers, and from start-ups to established businesses, companies have shifted further online and sought fresh solutions for customers and societies.

One of the ways to cut the cost of doing business in the informal sector is by helping to deliver goods to traders more efficiently is by Wasoko, formerly Sokowatch. In March, the company raised $125 million in a Series B funding round, after achieving the highest compound annual growth in revenues.

South Africa is the most represented country with 24 companies, followed by Nigeria with 20 and Egypt with six. These are the markets that have attracted the most venture capital.

Many of the fastest-growing companies are trying to tap Africa's unbanked population or markets that have previously been ignored. The health and education sectors offer the most scope for growth.

Some of the fastest-expanding companies are not high-tech. AfricaWorks is a real estate model that has had its difficulties but could benefit from hybrid working patterns. More traditional companies, such as miners and construction firms, make the list, proving that not all fast growth is digital.

Many of the innovative start-ups now attracting record funding are promising scaleable solutions to Africa's deep-seeded problems. It will be worth watching the Africa ranking in the future to find out which companies are enduring enough to move the needle.

The inaugural FT list was compiled with Statista, a research company, and ranks African companies by their compound annual growth rate in revenue. The arrows at the top of the columns can be used to sort companies by country, sector or revenue.

A ranking such as this can never claim to be complete because many fast-growing companies are privately held and do not publicly disclose financial data. The ranking can offer a meaningful insight into the health of private businesses because of the rigorous screening process, which requires senior executives to sign off on the figures submitted by their companies.

The full methodology can be found in the table.

Methodology

75 companies were ordered by the highest compound annual growth (CAGR) in revenues between 2017 and 2020 based on the criteria outlined below.

A complex procedure was used to create the ranking. Some companies did not participate in the search because they did not want their figures to be made public or because they did not want to be seen as being greedy.

Thousands of companies in Africa were identified by Statista as potential candidates for the ranking. The companies were invited to participate by email.

The project was advertised online and in the Financial Times between October 6, 2021 and February 15, 2022.

The revenue figures had to be certified by the chief executive, chief financial officer or an executive committee member.

Statista looked at the revenue data of about 900 public companies in Africa. The companies that met the criteria were added to the list. The data was collected using official sources, such as publicly available earning presentations, investor relations websites, or annual reports.

Criteria for inclusion

• The revenue of at least US $100 thousand was generated last year. The first thing is (1)

• In 2020, the revenue is expected to be at least US 1.5 million. The first thing is (1)

• An independent company is not a subsidiary or branch office.

• One of the African countries has an operational headquarters. There are two

• Revenue growth was mostly organic between the years of 2017 and 2020.

1. The average local currency value equivalent for countries that don't use the dollar to express revenues had to be provided over the course of the fiscal year.

2. The countries on the African continent were eligible to participate.

Calculation of Compound Annual Growth Rates

The revenue figures submitted by the companies in their national currencies are used to calculate company growth rates. The revenue figures were converted to US dollars for better comparability. The company indicated the average exchange rate for the financial year.

TheCAGR was calculated as follows:

Revenue 2020 / revenue 2017: 1 CAGR.

Evaluation and quality assurance

The data was checked by Statista. Employees numbers, address data, etc. were researched in detail. The companies that did not meet the criteria for inclusion were deleted.

This year's ranking requires a minimum compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7 percent.