I never thought I would see the day that a major Western research firm would tout Africa as a leading growth target for companies serving the consumer market with hundreds of billions of dollars at play.

我从来没想过有一天西方大型的研究机构如此看好非洲的发展前景，并将拥有数千亿美元消费市场潜力的非洲视为企业重要的成长目标。

The economy of Africa, the world's largest -- but largely forgotten -- continent, is rising rapidly, and after years of being a basketcase for war, political chaos, and deep poverty, its leading nations are growing almost as fast as their Asian counterparts and offering international enterprises huge potentials for solid sales and profits expansion if properly tapped, according to a recent McKinsey Quarterly report.

根据McKinsey Quarterly最新的报导，非洲--这片被遗忘的大陆--的经济正迅速成长，同时在多年来陷于战乱、政治混乱与极度贫穷的困境之后，一些主要国家开始展现如同亚洲几个新兴国家进展般地快速成长，并为全球企业提供强劲销售与扩张利润的巨大潜力。

Electronics equipment manufacturers should take note. Demand for communications equipment especially is roaring in Africa with many countries skipping entire generations of hardware and going straight for the latest devices. Most African users, for example, have dumped telephone landlines and opted instead for mobile phones. They are also rapidly transitioning from personal computers as the primary means for accessing the Internet to tablet PCs, which offer a higher level of portability and are also generally cheaper. Chinese suppliers have been quick to tap into these veins and are selling millions of no-name tablet PCs across the continent.

电子设备制造商应该关注这一重要信息。特别是，对于通信设备的需求正袭卷非洲，许多国家已经跳过好几代的硬件，直接追求最新最先进的电子产品。 例如，大部份的非洲用户已经闲置家中的固定电话线，改用手机通信。此外，由于平板电脑更具可移植性以及更负担得起，非洲用户也已经从以个人计算机(PC) 为主要接取网络的工具，快速地过渡到使用平板电脑。中国的供应商已经迅速抢进这一新市场，大举销售数以百万台的低端PC。

McKinsey noted several factors that are making Africa a compelling attraction for OEMs and component suppliers. The consulting firm said it sees "consumer-facing industries" on the continent growing $410 billion between 2012 and 2020 and "representing the continent's largest business opportunity." Some of that growth will be concentrated in the electronics and communications infrastructure markets. The continent, McKinsey said, has the following characteristics that will help it continue to grow strongly over the next decade:

McKinsey分析了几项使非洲成为吸引OEM与组件供应商的因素。该公司表示，从2012至2020年之间，非洲消费电子产业规模将增加约4,100亿美元，为全球电子行业带来最大的业务商机。部份成长着重于电子与通信基础架构市场。同时McKinsey还整理出以下几项有助于非洲在未来十年内持续强劲成长的特色：

Explosive population growth: Africa has the world's fastest-growing population and is projected to account for more than 40 percent of global population growth to 2030, according to the United Nations. Thanks to declining fertility rates, it is the working-age population that will have the highest growth rate. (In fact, by 2040, Africa's working-age population is forecast to surpass China's.)

人口的爆炸成长：非洲拥有全球成长最快速的人口，并且根据联合国估计，非洲的人口将在2030年时占到全球总人口的40%以上。由于生育率下降，非洲劳动年龄人口具有最高成长率。事实上，到2040年时，非洲的劳动年龄人口预计将超过中国。

A youthful market:Africa has the world's youngest population -- more than half its inhabitants are under 20 years old, compared with only 28 percent in China.

年轻化新市场：洲拥有全球最年轻的人口数──超过一半的居民都在20岁以下，相比之下中国则只有28%。 

乐观的新消费阶层：预计到2020年，将有一半以上的非洲家庭均拥有可支配收入，从目前的8,500万户增加到近1.3亿户。在接受调查访问的非洲人中，有84%的人均乐观地预期未来两年内家中收入还会变的更好。

Healthy urbanization: With 40 percent of its population living in cities, Africa is more urbanized than India (30 percent) and nearly as urbanized as China (45 percent). By 2016, over 500 million Africans will live in urban centers, and the number of cities with more than 1 million people is expected to reach 65, compared with 52 in 2011.

高度城市化：非洲有40%的人口居住在城市中，比印度(30%)、中国(45%)的人口城市化更高。到2016年时，预计将有超过5亿的非洲人将生活在城市中心，而人口在1百万以上的城市数量预计将达到65个，比2011年的52个城市更多。

A modernizing retail trade structure: Fragmented, informal retailing remains the norm in most of Africa. However, there are signs that the formalization of retail will dramatically increase in coming years. In Nigeria alone, international-store openings are growing by 36 percent a year.

现代化的零售交易架构：零散的、非正式的零售业仍然是目前大多数非洲国家的交易方式。然而，有迹象显示，更有规模的正规零售业将在未来几年大幅度提升。仅在尼日利亚，新开的国际化商店在一年内即增加了36%。

Such promising numbers should have retailers and manufacturers salivating over the possibilities of higher sales in Africa, but the promising financial numbers are also coupled with enormous challenges, including a general lack of knowledge about the continent and its potentials. Many Western companies are simply unaware of the growing sales opportunities, and those that are conversant with the continent simply lack the resources to exploit it or have a deep fear of its many known and unknown challenges.

非洲的这些发展前景将为零售业者与制造商带来更高的销售成绩，但同时也伴随着巨大的挑战，包括业界对于非洲大陆以及其潜在实力普便缺乏认识。许多西方公司并不了解有哪些成长的业务机会，而熟悉非洲大陆的厂商却又缺少资源利用，或甚至对于已知与未知的挑战存在深深的恐惧。

McKinsey said further，Africa's large, fast-growing population, combined with rising consumer disposable income, offers companies an enormous opportunity. Our research findings have important implications for enterprises new to the continent or for those seeking to expand there from an African base. The appropriate actions for each business will depend on a variety of factors.

McKinsey 进一步表示，非洲大量且快速成长的人口，再加上消费者可支配收入的不断提高，为企业带来了巨大的商机。然而，企业该采取什么样的行动？一切都将取决于多种不同的因素配合。我们还将进一步讨论可落实于非洲消费市场的策略，以及电子产业如何利用西方的现有优势与产品，满足广大的非洲市场需求。

原文来自：www.ebnonline.com/author.asp