Welcome to The Pulse by Kasi - a weekly newsletter on what Africans think, want and do, in real time.
From fintech breakthroughs to housing hurdles and shifting food choices, African consumers are adapting fast while global shocks reshape the landscape.
📱 Vodacom’s Fintech Surge: Q1 revenue jumped 11.4%, with Egypt up 43.8% 🚀. Fintech now drives 21% of group revenue, as M-Pesa processes nearly $460B annually.
💸 Ghana’s Digital Divide: Mobile money earns trust and usage, while fintech apps lag despite 95% awareness. Safety and loyalty remain the missing links.
🏠 Kenya’s Housing Gap: Gen Z faces savings and ownership barriers, while Gen X leverages mortgages and SACCOs to secure homes.
🥑🍅 Food Trends: In Cameroon, staples and fresh produce rise as proteins fall 📉. In Nigeria, fresh staples dominate but consumers split between value seekers and quality spenders.
🌐 Tariff Shockwaves: U.S. tariffs squeeze African exports but may accelerate regional integration and diversification.
📰 Bloomberg x Kasi Insight: Consumer confidence is uneven—resilient in some markets, pressured in others. Inflation and policy shifts set the tone.
💡 One takeaway: Africa’s next chapter will be written by trust, policy, and innovation as consumers demand value and stability.
📱 Vodacom Q1: Egypt & Fintech Drive Double-Digit Growth
Vodacom Group has reported strong results for the first quarter of FY2025, with service revenue up 11.4% year-on-year to R32.3 billion. On a normalised basis, growth reached 13.8%, highlighting resilience despite challenging conditions in South Africa.
Egypt was the standout performer, posting 43.8% revenue growth in local currency driven by data demand and the success of Vodacom’s financial services. Overall, fintech revenue surged 16.4% to R6.9 billion, now accounting for 21.4% of group revenue. The company’s M-Pesa platform, operated with Safaricom, processed nearly US$460 billion in annual transactions, underscoring its role as Africa’s leading mobile money service.
Vodacom is leaning on its “Vision 2030” strategy, which seeks to diversify earnings away from traditional mobile services toward fintech, digital ecosystems, and international markets. Management believes fintech could contribute up to 30% of total revenue by 2030, as consumer adoption deepens across Africa.
While results are encouraging, the group faces headwinds: foreign exchange volatility, regulatory scrutiny, and intensifying competition in fintech. Still, Vodacom’s Q1 performance signals momentum in its transformation from a telco into a digital and financial services leader.
Finance & Banking
📊 Kasi Insight’s Ghana Banking Brand Intelligence 2025 reveals that while awareness of digital finance is high, trust is the real barrier. 💸 Mobile money leads with strong usage (40%) and advocacy (NPS -7), while fintech apps struggle, despite 95% awareness, only 15% use them, with a weak NPS of -36. Building trust, safety, and loyalty will define the future of Ghana’s digital finance.
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🏠 Kenya’s housing journey is split by generation: Gen Z pays the lowest rents but lacks savings 💰, while Gen X carries bigger loans yet stands stronger in buying power. Ownership choices diverge family land & rent-to-own for the young, mortgages & SACCOs for the older.
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Retail & FMCG
🥑🍞 Cameroon’s food demand shifts in 2024! Staples & fresh produce are on the rise 📈, while processed foods & proteins decline 📉. Brands must adapt with better pricing, supply chains & innovation!
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🥔🍅🐟 Nigerians keep fresh staples at the heart of their diets even as budgets tighten. Q2 data shows a widening gap between value seekers and quality spenders price wins, but quality and function drive loyalty.
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Maps & Infographics
The U.S.’s new tariff regime, a 10% baseline on imports and up to 40% on transshipments, has upended decades of trade agreements like AGOA, pushing the average U.S. tariff to its highest level in a century. For Africa, the impact is sharp: South Africa, Algeria, and Libya now face 30% duties, while countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Lesotho face 15%. This means 📉 squeezed margins for key exports such as apparel, cocoa, and auto parts, but also a push toward diversification within Africa, Asia, and Europe. The bigger question is whether Africa will absorb the shock, or turn it into a pivot point for stronger regional integration and industrial growth.
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Featured Content
Bloomberg recently explored the African Consumer Confidence Index, highlighting insights from Kasi Insight.
Consumers across Africa are facing a mixed reality, squeezed by inflation, tariffs, and policy uncertainty, yet showing resilience in certain markets.
- South Africa: Retail sales are recovering, but sluggish investment continues to weigh on GDP growth.
- Kenya: Consumers are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and rising taxes. Kasi Insight data shows confidence remains in negative territory.
- Ghana: Sentiment has improved as inflation dropped sharply (from 50%+ to near single digits), supported by debt restructuring and currency stability.
- Tanzania: Stable outlook, helped by low inflation and infrastructure-driven growth.
- Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia: Slowing inflation points to better confidence in the next 6–12 months.
🔎 Takeaway: Africa’s consumer story is not uniform, domestic policies and inflation trends are the biggest drivers of confidence and spending power.
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