St. Nicholas, SAHCO, Transcorp, Others Listed Among Africa’s Fastest-growing Firms
•Nigeria, South Africa dominate list of 130 businesses
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
Africa’s two biggest, but sluggish economies, Nigeria and South Africa, have continued to dominate the Financial Times’ ranking of the fastest-growing African companies with more than half of the 130 companies listed in 2025 emerging from both countries.
The presence of 79 businesses from the two nations, with South Africa alone accounting for 51, an FT special report said, reflects the size and entrepreneurial depths of both economies.
On the negative side, the report said it also hints at how difficult it has been for companies from smaller countries to build a continental presence in what is still a highly fragmented landscape.
The FT ranking, compiled in conjunction with research company, Statista, and now in its fourth year, is backward looking, ranking businesses according to the compound growth rate between 2020 and 2023.
Some of the most prominent organisations operating in Nigeria mentioned by the FT included: Palmpay, which was listed 2nd; Moniepoint (16); Evercare Hospital (18); X3M Marketing Ideas (31); Chams Holding Plc (42), Transcorp Hotels Plc (44) and Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (48).
Others included: United Capital (57) FoodCo Nigeria Limited (66); Fidson Healthcare (67); Meyer Paints (72); Skyway Aviation Handling Company Plc (81); St. Nicholas Hospital (95), among others.
However, because many fast-growing companies are privately held and do not publicly disclose detailed financial data, a ranking such as this, it said, can never claim to be complete.
Managing Partner at Adenia, a private equity firm specialising in Africa, Stéphane Bacquaert, said the fragmentation of Africa’s 54 economies, many of them tiny by global standards, presented real hurdles.
“You deal with different currencies, different legal environments and, despite the political efforts to try to integrate the regions, the reality is that you don’t operate the same way in Côte d’Ivoire as in Senegal,” he said. “Those are very two different markets, as are Kenya and Tanzania,” he added, referring to east African neighbours with very different business environments.
Of the top three ranked companies, all Nigerian, only one, second-placed PalmPay, operates in more than three countries. Omniretail, an embedded finance and B2B enabling platform, which came in first place for the second year running, operates in only two countries outside its Nigerian base, Ghana and Ivory Coast, the FT stated.
Chief Executive of British International Investment, Leslie Maasdorp, the UK’s development finance institution, said TymeBank — in which it has an investment — was proof that African businesses could “go global with world-leading and inclusive business models”. But Maasdorp also points out that just four African countries dominate in the fintech sector, with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa accounting for 90 per cent of funding in 2024.
Co-founder of Future Africa, which invests in early-stage businesses, Iyin Aboyeji, said it is not necessary to build a pan-African presence given the opportunities in key economies, particularly Nigeria and South Africa.
“Most companies that have gone into unicorn status have done so without going through that pain,” he said, referring to businesses — two of which he co-founded — that achieved a market capitalisation of $1 billion principally through exposure to Nigeria.
Not all fast-growing companies succeed. Several companies, including a few that have appeared on previous FT-Statista rankings, have run into trouble, or gone out of business, the report added.
This, it said, highlights the difficulty of keeping momentum going, said Yasmin Kumi, CEO and founder of Africa Foresight Group, which seeks to transform medium-sized African businesses into global champions.
Jumia, once known hyperbolically as “the Amazon of Africa”, has sharply scaled back its expansion plans, a move reflected in a much diminished share price. Elsewhere, Gro Intelligence, once heralded as a pioneer in agritech and data analytics, went bust last year.
