| > I am utterly shocked they have not moved into Africa yet. Africa's (generalizing) median income has just begun to climb high enough in the last 10-15 years, to be financially interesting to the US fast-food companies. Nigeria's GDP in 1999 was... $35 billion, for a population of 119 million people, or roughly $300 per capita. That leaves very little money in the bottom 2/3 for buying fast-food. Today Nigeria's GDP is closer to ~$400 billion for 186 million people (call it $2,000 per capita), a tremendous leap in economic capability. Many other nations in Africa have seen similar results. Consider that Kenya's GDP at a low point in 1993, was just $5 or $6 billion.... It's $70 billion today. Or Ethiopia, from $7.x billion in 2002, to $72 billion today and still climbing rapidly. Most likely these nations become appealing business opportunities for all sorts of foreign companies (whether US or European or Chinese etc), with the rapidly rising disposable incomes. |