In recent years, many expected African digital publishing to consolidate. The assumption was that declining advertising revenue and shrinking platform traffic would push smaller publishers to merge into larger, more resilient companies.
Current data does not support this theory. There have been no major mergers and acquisitions of digital publishers by traditional media houses, no successful roll-up vehicles and no private equity firms entering the sector with a focus on publishing. Instead, publishers are closing print operations and, in some cases, disappearing online. Capital is flowing into adjacent businesses such as data and enterprise intelligence. Media assets are being sold individually rather than combined. The firms that remain are evolving into fundamentally different kinds of businesses.
