African e-commerce users expected to surge 50% in next three years

According to data from data analysis platform ecommerceDB , the number of e-commerce users in Africa is expected to grow by 50% by 2025, surpassing Asia, which currently has the largest number of e-commerce users in the world.

Statista Digital Market Outlook data also shows that although the number of e-commerce users in Africa is still low, the number of online shoppers active in the market is expected to increase from 334 million now to 518 million between 2021 and 2025 , an increase of 56%.

Statista Digital Market Outlook also predicts that the number of global e-commerce users will reach 3.1 billion in 2025 , and the number of users will grow at a rate of 32% .

According to Statista Digital Market Outlook , 2.4 billion people in Asia will be active online shoppers in 2021. This is equivalent to more than half of the total population , or an e-commerce penetration rate of 53% . In comparison, the number of e-commerce users in other regions such as Australia , America or Europe will grow by less than 20%.

Asia is an international leader in technological innovation and adoption of digital technologies , including e-commerce, which is clearly reflected in Asia’s share of the international online market’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) and can also be easily seen in the lifestyles of Asian consumers.

With popular apps like WeChat in China , online shopping is integral to Asian consumers’ daily activities. Given Asia’s large population, it’s no surprise that the region has the highest absolute number of e-commerce users compared to other regions in the world.

However, the report noted that Africa ranks among the top in the world in terms of growth in the number of e-commerce users .

EcommerceDB pointed out that although Africa's e-commerce penetration rate was as low as 13% in 2017, data from Statista Digital Market Outlook showed that Africa 's e-commerce penetration rate has steadily increased by about 3 to 4 percentage points each year , reaching 28% in 2021, which means that the total number of e-commerce users has reached 334 million.

Surprisingly , however , the number of e-commerce users in Africa did not grow as much as expected in 2020 , with e - commerce penetration increasing from 20% in 2019 to 24% in 2020. Statista analysts expect Africa’s growth trend to continue until 2025, reaching 519 million users .

In addition, another study conducted by World Wide Worx also mentioned that the total growth rate of online retail in South Africa in 2020 reached 66%, bringing the total online retail sales in South Africa to 30.2 billion rand . Its forecast that the total online retail sales in the region will increase by 30% to 42 billion rand in 2021 will also be revealed in the 2022 study .

Cross-border e-commerce market

Africa