Africa’s 54 countries now include seven of the globe’s 10 fastest-growing economies, in part because the lethal virus may have improved their competitive advantage as they accelerated their decade-long transformation from exporters of natural resources to hubs of wireless, remotely engaged commerce. Transition to technology-driven, 21st-century business in a region where people are younger than anywhere else is reflected in the changing landscape of the 1,300 publicly traded companies that make up corporate Africa.
Communications firms have become a robust presence, making up 29% of the total market capitalization of the continent in 2020 compared to 13% a decade earlier. Materials and energy, the region’s benchmarks since colonial times, declined to 23% from 34% during the same period. Africa has held off the COVID-19 assault better than many developing regions. The coronavirus had receded by mid-November in some of the continent’s largest countries — South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia — to their lowest levels since April or May 2020.