For our final Chart of the Day this week, we finish our short series exploring digital activities in Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria by examining the online purchase journey of digital consumers in these markets.
At the brand discovery phase, we find that while more ‘traditional’ channels, particularly TV, still have an important role to play in how consumers discover new products or services, the importance of digital is plain to see.
Around 40% of digital consumers in these countries say they find new brands from ads they see online.
We also see that, compared to the global average, one of the biggest over-indexes in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria is for discovering new brands via social media, no doubt helped by the more engaged nature of social networkers here.
At the next stage of the purchase journey – the research phase – social media emerges as key. When consumers in these markets are aware of a brand/product and are looking for more information, they are most likely to turn to social media. Considering how highly-engaged digital consumers are with social media, particularly with Facebook, this does suggest that social commerce options could have a potential in these markets. Already popular in some Asian markets, where smartphones are similarly central to consumers’ digital lives, social could become a key part of the growing e-commerce industry in emerging African markets.
To learn more about digital consumers in this region, clients can now download our new Market Reports here.
