Top 10 Largest African Companies by Revenue in 2024

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We are so used to seeing “world rankings” but we hardly see African nations in these supposed “global rankings.” This in some way contributes to the negative view that the world has towards Africa. Regardless of this, Africa is still a beautiful and very successful continent with so much to offer. 

In this post, I will be listing the top ten biggest companies in Africa based on revenue. This is because a company can be massive in terms of operations and employment rate and fall short in other areas. God willing, I will publish other articles about the top ten countries based on other factors. 

Another thing to note is that I will only list companies that have their origins or headquarters in an African country and “bn” stands for billion. 

Let's take a look;

10. Pick n Pay

Pick n Pay Group is a South African company that was founded 57 years ago and operates one of the largest retail companies on the African continent. The company operates in many African countries, mainly in the SADC region, which includes South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Eswatini, Namibia, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, where they own 49% of TM Supermarkets.

The current CEO of Pick n Pay Group is Sean Summers who has been CEO since September 2023.

The company is public so its financial reports are available for everyone to see. 

• Revenue: R106.6bn about $5.6bn for the year ended 26 February 2023.

This revenue information is based on the company’s “Summarised Group Annual Financial Statements” document. 

9. Sibanye-Stillwater

Sibanye is another South African company specialising mainly in mining. The company was founded in 2012 and originally served only South Africa. Despite this, the company has a diverse portfolio of mining and processing operations, projects, and investments across five continents.

The metals and materials the company mainly focuses on are gold, platinum, rhodium, and palladium. The company’s CEO is Neal Froneman. According to the company’s website, he has been the CEO and executive director of the company since 1 January 2013.

The company is public, so its financial reports are available for everyone to see. 

• Revenue: R113bn about $5.9bn per production. 

This revenue information is based on the company’s Integrated Report for the year ended 31 December 2023.

8. Vodacom Group

Vodacom is a telecommunications company that was founded in the beautiful nation of South Africa in the year 1994 so it's about 30 years old. It is headquartered in Midrand, South Africa and offers its services only in Africa. 

Vodacom offers its services and products to about 32 African nations which include, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Lesotho, DRC and many others. The current CEO of Vodacom is Shameel Joosub who has been a part of the company since 2012.

The company is public so its financial reports are available for everyone to see. 

• Revenue: R119.2bn about $6.3bn

These numbers are based on the Annual Results from Vodacom for the year ended 31 March 2023.

7. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)

NNPC was founded on the first of April 1977 as a merger between two different entities one being the Nigerian National Oil Corporation and the other being Federal Ministry of Petroleum and Energy Resources. It was a government owned company up until the year 2022. NNPC is the only company in Nigeria that has a licence to participate in Nigeria’s petroleum industry however, outside of Nigeria they work with other companies.

The company has a GCEO which stands for Group Chief Executive Officer and that is Mr Mele Kyari. I could not gather much information about the company because it is a private company however, if you wish to do further research on the company you can find valuable information on their official website.

This revenue information was provided by Wikipedia (so it’s not conclusive.)

• Revenue: $9.7bn in the year 2022.

6. OCP Group 

OCP Group is a state-owned mining company from Morocco, founded on 7 August 1920. Initially, it was known as Office Chérifien des Phosphates, which means Chérifien Phosphates Office in English. Simply put, phosphate is an essential resource for agricultural fertilisers, and Morocco has 70% of the world’s reserves of phosphate, making the OCP Group a very important company in the mining and agricultural sectors.

The company started mining operations in March 1921 in a single mine, but today they operate across five continents, mainly focusing on mining and manufacturing. The current CEO of the company is Mr Mostafa Terrab, who has been with the company since 2006.

OCP is not a public company, so we cannot verify their financial statements unless they choose to publicise the information themselves. However, based on the information I found on Wikipedia, these are their numbers.

• Revenue: $11bn in 2022.

5. MTN Group

MTN group is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Africa that was founded with the assistance of the South African government 30 years ago (1994). The headquarters of the company are in Johannesburg, South Africa and the company only offers its services and products in Africa. They are active in more than twenty countries and Nigeria produces a third of the company’s revenue and they hold a 35% market share in Nigeria. In each country they operate in, they operate under a different name in some instances for example in Botswana they operate under the MASCOM brand which was founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa.

The company’s CEO is Mr Ralph Mupita who has been in office since September 2020. Since MTN Group is a publicly traded company we can see how much revenue they generate.

• Revenue: R210.1bn about $11.1bn for the year ended 31 December 2023.

 

This revenue was from the official MTN Annual Financial Results report.

4. Shoprite Holdings

Shoprite Holdings is the largest supermarket operator in Africa running more than 3000 stores across the continent. I could not get an exact date of when the company was founded but based on the information I could find it was founded in the year 1979. The company has operations in multiple African countries including, Namibia, Zambia, South Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar, Uganda, Tanzania and others. They currently employ about 160,000 people as of December 2023 and their CEO is Pieter Engelbrecht as of January 2017.

The company is public so its financial reports are available for everyone to see. 

This revenue information was provided by Companies Market Cap.

Revenue: $11.46bn in 2023.

3. Sasol

Sasol is an energy and chemical-based company based in Sandton, South Africa. It was founded on the 26th of September 1950. The company develops and commercialises technologies, including synthetic fuel technologies, and produces different liquid fuels, chemicals, coal tar, and electricity. They source, market, and produce a range of products in twenty-two countries. Sasol is a publicly traded company listed on the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) and NYSE (New York Stock Exchange).

The CEO of Sasol is Mr Simon Baloyi, who has been in office since the 1st of April 2024.

Since the company is publicly traded, we can see how much revenue they generated. The revenue information was provided by Statista. 

• Revenue: R290bn in 2023 about $15.4bn.

2. Eskom

If you are not South African, let me tell you, this is a controversial company which is probably the most hated South African company of all time. However, this company is also one of the most important companies in South Africa as it produces and supplies approximately 95% of South Africa’s electricity. The reason why the company is hated is because of the annoying thing called “load shedding” for those unfamiliar with the term, load shedding is another term for power cuts and Eskom’s load shedding is quite excessive.

The company was established in the year 1923 as the “Electricity Supply Commission.” Eskom is the largest producer of Electricity in Africa and it is one of South Africa’s largest state owned companies. The CEO of Eskom is Calib Cassim who has been in office since the 1st February 2023.

Eskom is a publicly traded company so their financial reports are available for everyone to see. This revenue information was provided by Eskom’s official media statements on their website.

 

• Revenue: R259bn about $13.7bn in 2023.

1.Sonatrach

Sonatrach is the 12th largest oil consortium in the world with over 154 subsidiaries. A consortium according to the definition provided by the Miriam Webster dictionary is,

an agreement, combination, or group (as of companies) formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any one member.

The company hails from the largest African country by land area, Algeria and it was founded on the 31st of December 1963. The entire company is owned by the government of Algeria and it is not a publicly traded company so much of its operations and financial statements can be kept private by the owners/government of Algeria. The CEO of Sonatrach is Rachid Hachichi and that is as much information I could find about him.

Since the company is not publicly traded its financial statements can be kept private from the public. The only source of information I could find about their revenue is Wikipedia.

• Revenue: $77bn in 2023.

Conclusion

Well, that is the list of ten of Africa’s largest companies by revenue in 2024, the revenue statements are based on the full year of 2023 as we have not come to the conclusion of 2024 yet. However, thank you for reading and I hope that this information has been useful.