The State of App Marketing in Sub-Saharan Africa – 2024 Edition

As we head towards the end of 2024, sub-Saharan Africa stands poised for economic recovery after recent challenges. Growth is anticipated for the region’s largest economies like South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, with the potential for policymakers to push through economic reform to accelerate sustainable, inclusive growth to the next level.

The International Monetary Fund projects regional growth to climb to 4.2% in 2025. Although that still represents relatively subdued levels of growth, it does provide cautious optimism against a background of lingering inflation pressures, financial exclusion and unemployment.

Those economic dynamics have at least provided fertile ground for digital transformation in sub-Saharan Africa, with digitization in the region gaining momentum throughout 2024 – particularly in the fintech sector. 

The mobile market continues to grow rapidly, with projections suggesting that mobile subscriptions in the region could breach 1 billion by 2029 – of which two-thirds will be smartphones. 4G adoption has accelerated in recent years and will be the primary driver of that mobile expansion, with half of all mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa expected to be 4G in five years’ time. A dip in the average price point of smartphone devices has also boosted adoption rates, although this still remains a barrier to entry for the many in the region still living in poverty.

As we dive deeper into this report, we will explore how these economic and technological trends are shaping sub-Saharan Africa’s future, examining the interplay between economic challenges and digital innovation, and assessing the potential for growth in the mobile market.

Overall installs grew significantly in sub-Saharan Africa through the first half of 2024, rising by 23% year-on-year. That steady upwards trend continued for Android into Q3 of this year – up by 20% on the same quarter of 2023 – but iOS took a step back, dipping by 14%.

The impact of that backward step was mitigated by the fact that Google commands a much greater user base in the region. Comparing the first three quarters of this year to the same period of 2023 reveals a sizeable 21% growth in overall installs.

Non-organic installs (NOIs) underpinned Android’s growth in sub-Saharan Africa in 2024 to date, growing 28% year-on-year. Nigeria saw particularly strong growth during the first half of this year, rising by 38% in H1 compared to the same period of 2023.

NOI performance in the other major market of South Africa was relatively subdued, albeit with some sharp acceleration in Q3 of 2024, which rose by 31% compared to the third quarter of the previous year. That could bode well for marketers heading into the holiday period and beyond.

As NOI activity grew in the region, remarketing conversions nosedived over the summer to offset a 2x growth in Q1 of 2024. That leaves remarketing down by 22% in the year-to-date when compared to the same period of 2023 – but marketers should be encouraged by the phenomenal success of Q4 2023 and Q1 of this year. Clearly, there was great success in reactivating lapsed users around the holiday period, which hopefully sets a positive precedent heading into this year’s holidays.

App install ad spend dipped by 7% overall in Q1-3 of this year compared to last, with iOS taking a 10% hit year-on-year. Q3 brought some renewed spend, with a modest 6% rise compared to the same quarter in 2023.

As we’ll see, though, rising in-app purchase numbers for the region suggests that ad spend as a whole was shifted towards full-funnel marketing – engagement and conversion – rather than pure acquisition.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of the region’s mobile and economic growth can be found in sub-Saharan Africa’s in-app purchase (IAP) revenue trend, which is up 24% in 2024 to date compared to the previous year. iOS saw an impressive 39% increase during this period. With app install ad spend declining slightly year-on-year, it appears that marketers have shifted budget towards more of a full-funnel marketing approach, with impressive results.

With extremely strong performance in Q3 compared to the same period last year – up 25% on Android and 58% on iOS – that may suggest that the region is in for a strong conclusion to 2024 in terms of revenue.

When digging into the app landscape of any region, Google Search trends provide a strong indication of purchase intent or interest – meaning that a lot of insights can be derived from what people are searching for. For this report, we’ve focussed on Financial Services as one of the most-searched categories in sub-Saharan Africa, and looked at search traffic in Nigeria and South Africa.

According to the trends report from google, Financial Services has seen overall growth from January 2023- August 2024, with March being a seasonal peak for search terms in Nigeria. Of the rising* search topics related to finance, the following businesses have shown the largest volume:

1. “Moniepint”
2. “O-Pay”
3. “UBA internet Banking”
4. “Wema Bank” and
5. “Eco Bank”

*Rising topics are Finance related topics with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period. 

Of the Top** search terms, “Naira” “dollar” “naira to dollar” and “loans” were the most frequently searched on Google, with Zenith Bank and GTBank the only financial institutions in the top 20 category of search trends.

** Top – The most popular topics. Scoring is on a relative scale where a value of 100 is the most commonly searched topic and a value of 50 is a topic searched half as often as the most popular term, and so on.

According to the trends report from Google, for South Africa, Finance related searches have remained relatively flat, with a spike in January 2024.

South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), the government agency responsible for social grants was the #1 rising search term in South Africa. The financial institutions in the top category were:

1.  “Nedbank”
2. “Discovery Bank”
3. “TransUnion”
4. “Wonga”
5. ABSA

The finance vertical was one of the standout categories for apps in sub-Saharan Africa in 2023 and into 2024, with impressive growth throughout – particularly in Q1. Overall installs of finance apps were up 34% when comparing the first three quarters of 2024 to the same period last year. iOS enjoyed a doubling of finance installs in Q1 of this year compared to the opening quarter of 2023.

Finance apps on Android continued their upward trend throughout the year, culminating in a 33% increase in Q3 vs the same period of 2023.

Marketers found plenty of success with paid acquisition of finance apps on Android in the region in 2024, with a 24% year-on-year increase and a continual upward trend throughout the measurement period. This was particularly prominent in South Africa, which saw a phenomenal 102% rise in Q1-3 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

This NOI performance is all the more impressive given the trend of ad spend on finance apps in the region, as shown in the next section.

The finance vertical was one hit hardest by reduced app install ad spend budgets in 2024, with Android dipping by 27% in the first three quarters of the year compared to the previous period. Although 2025 and beyond is anticipated to be an improving time for economies in sub-Saharan Africa, this late-2024 performance may be an early sign that there could be a lag before finance ad spending recovers alongside the economy as a whole.

To that end, Q3 brought brighter news for marketers and potentially a positive outlook for Q4 and into the new year, as ad spend rose by 9% overall compared to Q3 of 2024. This includes a significant 57% rise for iOS, albeit on a platform with a relatively low market share.

IAP revenue from finance apps in sub-Saharan Africa continues to increase, with a big boost in Q3 of 46% compared to the same quarter in 2023. Taking Q1-3 of this year as a whole shows a significant 28% rise in IAP revenue among the vertical compared to the same period of the previous year.

The major market of Nigeria has seen finance apps jump in IAP revenue on iOS, up 51% compared to Q1-3 of the previous year, although Android has taken a small dip of 14% during that period.

Shopping apps have seen a remarkable rise in app install ad spend during 2024 to date, with spend skyrocketing by 80% when compared to the first three quarters of 2023. Considering that Q4 traditionally sees a bump for the shopping vertical, we could be set for a record-breaking year overall for ad spend on shopping apps.

iOS saw spend more than double during Q1-3, with Android also increasing by 59%.

After a strong 2023, IAP revenue continued to grow in the shopping vertical through the first three quarters of the year – up 15% on the same period in 2023. iOS was a particularly strong performer, rising by 26% during this period. Considering the sizeable bump enjoyed by shopping apps in Q4 of last year, the signs suggest a strong end to the year for the vertical.

In Nigeria, while IAP revenue growth was more modest than the region as a whole, there was encouragement in Q3 as revenue climbed by 15% year-on-year.