The report analyses the economic state of Sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to assess the opportunities in the region against the backdrop of its young, large and fast-growing population, as well as the bottlenecks Sub-Saharan Africa faces, including widespread corruption, infrastructure challenges and skills shortages. It ends with some key business takeaways for Sub-Saharan Africa and concludes on the region’s potential as a rising global economic frontier.

Consumer mobility is evolving as urbanisation, sustainability and growing technological savviness are driving demand for travel supported by dynamic payment solutions. Euromonitor International introduces the Digital Payments in Mobility Index to rank 29 countries across four key pillars: Market Potential, Digital Readiness, Payment Readiness and Consumer Potential. The index unveils the best and worst countries and offers a snapshot of their historic, and future performance.

Technological advances in 2022 will continue to reshape shopping behaviour for digitally-savvy consumers. This report explores the top five tech-driven trends expected to reshape commerce the most in the year ahead. Some of the trends included in this report’s edition touch on topics such as the post-pandemic consumer, the metaverse, sustainability, loyalty, last mile delivery and collection and quick commerce.

The global urban consumer landscape is increasingly complex and difficult to navigate. Which cities should you choose for your consumer business expansion? To answer this and other questions, we are introducing the Euromonitor International Cities Scorecard tool, which ranks 1,219 cities globally and helps determine which urban consumer markets are offering the best opportunities. This report provides global and regional city ranks and detailed city snapshots of the most promising cities.

Last mile delivery platforms have disrupted shopping patterns and channels, particularly for grocery categories. Despite their growth, questions about their ability to achieve profitability remain. This briefing includes an overview of trends in last mile delivery and profiles on the following companies: Airtasker, Cornershop, GoGoX, Go Send, HappyFresh, Hepsiexpress, Igoods.ru, Inabuggy, Instacart, Instashop, Lalamove, Nana Direct, Everli and Zásilkovna.

As the pandemic accelerated digital streaming service consumption, the launch and expansion of new platforms continued, leading to intensified competition in which novelty has become a key differentiator. This briefing includes profiles of the following companies: Apple Music, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, BluTV, DAZN, Disney+, Disney+Hotstar, Icflix, Molotov, Netflix, QQ Music, Rakuten TV, Spotify, Stan, StarzPlay and others.

Stores continue to invest in systems that make buying easier, more convenient, frictionless, while e-commerce players are expanding their shopping capabilities, helping consumers to find better, more targeted products. In the process, these two worlds are converging. This report discusses the challenges and opportunities created by these channel shifts, while exploring the broader impact to the retail industry.

The next billion consumers represent new growth opportunities worth trillions of dollars in consumer spending across the globe. However, the next billion consumers are not a monolithic cohort, as they vary hugely from market to market. In order to capture and capitalise on these new opportunities, companies need to understand who the next billion consumers are, where they come from, what drives their spending, and what are their needs, preferences and behaviours.

Eastern Europe’s digital development continues as consumers increasingly embrace digital services. Consumers previously suspicious of the safety of online payments began to trust and value the convenience of fast and secure online payment methods as they came into greater contact with them in 2020 due to Coronavirus (COVID-19). This shift is not expected to be a temporary trend during the pandemicbut will help accelerate digitalisation, particularly with the arrival of 5G on the horizon.

With North America already one of the more developed digital societies, Coronavirus (COVID-19) provided further impetus in 2020, with locked-down consumers working and learning at home, as well as shopping and entertaining themselves a lot more in an online environment. The rollout of 5G is also gaining speed in the region, although the perennial problem of the urban/rural gap continues causing some headaches for policy-makers and industry players alike.

While Latin America’s digital landscape is less well developed than other regions globally, most measures continue to improve, with Coronavirus (COVID-19) also having served to drive the digital landscape development in 2020. With locked-down consumers working and learning at home, as well as shopping and entertaining themselves a lot more in an online environment, they were increasingly turning to digital solutions during the pandemic.