Nairobi ranked tenth among top 20 African cities in consumer size, economic activity

NAIROBI, KENYA: Nairobi City has scooped position ten among the top twenty African cities in terms of economic activity, consumer size and connectivity.

The ranking by Fraym Urban Markets Index ranks the continent's 169 largest urban clusters by above standards.

This time round,the index ranked 35 countries.

Top of the list was Eqypt's capital city Cairo, followed by Johannesburg (South Africa), Lagos(Nigeria), Luanda(Angola) and number five was Democratic Republic of Congo's Kinshasha.

Interestingly, South Africa had four cities including Durban at number 13, Vereeniging, a city in Gauteng province, South Africa,which closed the list in top 35 cities and Cape Town at position seven as Egypt had also apart from Cairo, Alexandria, the Mediterranean port city in Egypt came at position nine.

Number six went to Casablanca, which is considered the economic and business center of Morocco, although the national political capital is Rabat, Khartoum was eight.

Nairobi scored 19 points on economic activity, 13 on consumer size and 6 points on connectivity.

Dakar in Senegal closed the top twenty list.

"Outside of the top three, each African city has a unique profile. Some, like Khartoum and Alexandria, are very large markets with many millions of emerging consumers. Others, like Nairobi and Casablanca, are highly connected gateways to their sub-regions and beyond. This reflects the diversity of the continent and the need to examine each city market as a distinct entity," said Fraym CEO Ben Leo.

He added: "Nairobi has successfully positioned itself as a hyper-connected hub, both within East Africa and across the continent. This gives the city an outsized influence despite having a smaller GDP than many other African cities."