The cellphone is going to be a key touchpoint for commerce in Africa and any business wanting to target consumers on the continent should be "mobile first".
That's the word from MasterCard Southern Africa's division lead of core products and processing, Suven Kander.
Kander was a panellist in a discussion at the Deloitte Africa Outlook Conference 2020 on how retail could capture the new emerging African consumer.
A touchpoint is a point of contact or interaction, especially between a business and its customers or consumers.
Kander said a trend he had seen in the market was a shift from buying airtime to buying data. With smartphones getting cheaper, the new emerging market had better access to knowledge.
Kander described the emerging consumer as young, brand-conscious and hardworking.
“The young, connected African consumer has a high expectation for faster, easier, frictionless experiences. To fulfil this need, you need to place the consumer at the centre of everything you do,” said Kander.
Another panellist, Jacques Vermeulen, CEO of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, described the new African consumer as connected, urbanised and very young.
Ailyssa Pretorius, general manager of Uber Eats South Africa, said there were more similarities in African markets than differences. She said young consumers might look at trends elsewhere but nevertheless want a localised product.
On how health issues determined which foods customers chose, Pretorius said though the most searched terms on their website were “health” and “sushi”, most people ordered burgers.
Vermeulen said road infrastructure was a challenge in the distribution of their products on the continent. However, governments had done a lot to improve infrastructure in the past few years.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
