The rise of Africa’s creative economy

When Universal Music Group acquired a majority stake in Nigerian record company Mavin Global (valued at $150-200 million),¹ it was investing in the continent with the fastest growing music industry in the world.² Mavin’s roster, which features Afrobeats stars Rema and Arya Starr, achieved a combined 6 billion streams in 2023.³ Beyond music, Africa has also seen major growth across fashion, film, and gaming. Africa’s gaming industry reached $1 billion in 2024, with 66 active studios across 23 countries.⁴ SONY partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to establish a $10 million Sony Innovation Fund to back African startups across the film, fashion, sports, gaming, and music industries.⁵ One of these startups, gaming publisher Carry1st, has created one of the most downloaded games in the U.S. and raised $60 million since 2018, becoming the largest creative startup in Africa.⁶

These are just a few examples of Africa’s robust creative economy, which by 2030 could be valued at $200 billion,⁷ making up 10% of global exports in creative goods⁸ and offering unprecedented opportunities for strategic investors, who are seeking the next frontier within the creative industries sector. I explore these opportunities in my book “Realizing Africa’s Potential: A Journey to Prosperity.”⁹

Key trends and investment opportunities

The burgeoning creative industries offer investment opportunities all across the continent. Dakar has become a fashion and art capital, Morocco has hosted Hollywood movies on their film sets, and South Africa has become a hub for gaming and esports. A few industries stand out: 

Music industry momentum: Africa’s music sector is a commercial validation of the continent’s creative investment potential. For example, along with Universal Music Group’s majority stake of Mavin Global, Warner Music Group fully acquired one of Africa’s leading independent music distributors, Africori, allowing its stable of over 7,000 artists to be distributed through both companies.¹⁰

Gaming and esports expansion: Africa’s gaming industry offers tech-enabled scalability with proven monetization models, reaching $1 billion in 2024,¹¹ and projected to grow to $3.7 billion by 2030.¹² Africa’s growth in tech-savvy youth is driving this expansion, with opportunities for industries like mobile money to enable microtransactions.

Film production and content creation: Strategic policy interventions have created regional production hubs within the film and content production industry. Kenya’s 20-30% film rebate scheme attracted Netflix and Amazon productions,¹³ Morocco’s Ouarzazate studios hosted Hollywood blockbusters like Game of Thrones and Gladiator,¹⁴ and Nigeria’s Nollywood earns $590 million a year.¹⁵

Fashion and E-commerce: The IFC estimates that the continent’s e-commerce market could grow by $14.5 billion between 2025-2030.¹⁶ Digital platforms are helping African artisans within the fashion industry to reach global markets.

The human capital advantage: Investors will find one key advantage that permeates all these different types of creative industries: human capital. Unlike manufacturing or routine service jobs, the employment in the creative industries resists automation while leveraging technology for scale. Even in a tech-intensive creative sector like gaming, human ingenuity is required to create narratives and characters that are later brought to life with technology. This unique characteristic creates a powerful business case suited to African demographics where the median age is 19 and approximately 60% of the population is under the age of 25.¹⁷ Africa will soon have the world’s youngest workforce entering their most creative and productive years. Investing in Africa’s creative industries will create decent work for millions¹⁸ (UNESCO estimates that film and audiovisual industries alone could create 20 million jobs¹⁹) and improve human development by increasing incomes, while also offering sustainable returns for investors that is built on human capital that appreciates with experience, as young Africans will be producing the future content and driving the future global trends.

However, several obstacles still remain to unlocking the full business and human development potential of Africa’s creative industries. First, structural barriers and infrastructure deficits can deter investors. Approximately 84% of Kenya’s 275,375 creative enterprises are unregistered²⁰ and less than 5% of creative businesses can secure traditional bank loans.²¹ Limited infrastructure such as cinemas (Africa has 1 screen per 787,000 people compared to 1 screen per 50,000 in Europe²²), unreliable electricity, and lack of large-capacity venues create operational constraints and limit possibilities.

Second, intellectual property vulnerabilities create revenue leakages. Approximately 50-75% of revenues are lost to piracy in Africa’s film industry,²³ while musicians in Ghana and Tanzania have lost monetization opportunities due to outdated royalty systems.²⁴ Third, purchasing power realities constrain market capacity. Companies have had to rethink their approaches after seeing declines due to purchasing power. For example, despite having 3 times the population of South Africa, Nigeria’s cinema revenue is significantly lower ($7.5 million compared to South Africa’s $29.9 million). Meanwhile, the pay-for-TV company MultiChoice’s subscriptions declined by 18% in 2024 due to customers cancelling.²⁵ While challenging, these barriers are not insurmountable, and companies have already found ways to navigate the current environment and find a competitive edge.

A strategic path forward for investors

To overcome these barriers and find success within the broad creative transformation Africa is undergoing, investors should keep three principles in mind.

1. Scale through accessibility: Affordable pricing remains a key feature for scaling in African markets. Boomplay, for example, is Africa’s most popular music streaming platform, one that was able to penetrate the market through a tailored strategy. The app is preinstalled in one of the continent’s leading phone makers, Transsion, and the cost is low, helping them to reach 2 million new subscribers a month, with 44 million total downloads.²⁶ Other partnerships are also opening the industry to more users. For example, Orange partnered with Spotify to bundle its mobile subscription with free access to Spotify, starting in the DRC, Madagascar, Mali, and Guinea.²⁷ Mobile-first, free-to-play models are currently dominating alongside platforms that optimize for low-data downloads and offline functionality. 
2. Infrastructure as a first-mover advantage: Strategic investments in infrastructure can offer competitive advantages. From digital platforms, to venue rental marketplaces, to mobile production equipment, many firms are moving quickly to fill gaps in the entertainment industry. Between 2013 to 2023, Concerts SA, a joint Norwegian/South African live music support program created over 27,000 jobs for musicians and technicians across 13 African countries, hosting over 1 million attendees.²⁸ Live Nation also expanded into South Africa, partnering with local companies to launch a new large-capacity venue in Johannesburg.²⁹ In Nigeria, companies like OgaVenue are taking advantage of the country’s concert “renaissance” by offering online booking platforms for events, finding a lucrative business opportunity to support the creative economy’s growth.³⁰
3. Leverage the diaspora’s distribution power: The diaspora’s  estimated 200-million-person market  with already-engaged purchasing power is an underutilized target for investment in Africa’s creative economy.³¹ For example, the diaspora has elevated African and Afro-descendant designers in the fashion industry to the global market with the aid of platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The demand for African textiles and prints have driven Western and Asian luxury brands to seek out African partnerships.³² With over  $15 billion  in African exports of textile, clothing, and footwear a year,³³ African designers and brands are growing, launching new stores and popups (Zuri, Dye Lab), collaborating with Western fashion companies (Lemlem), and being put on display at the forefront of fashion at the Met Gala (Adebayo Oke-Lawal and Thebe Magugu).³⁴ Creative industries are steeped in storytelling, self-expression, community, and culture, thus the need to actively engage the diaspora to invest in (and consume) African creative goods. 

With these three principles in mind, and by capitalizing on the areas for growth listed above, investors can take part in the upgrading of Africa’s creative industries, as well as contribute to Africa’s ownership, monetization, and export of its cultural renaissance.