In purchasing power, Egypt overtook Nigeria as Africa's biggest economy
GDP at purchasing power parity, trillion international dollars, 2015–2025. At market exchange rates Egypt passed Nigeria only in 2024.
- 1. By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African
- 2. Nearly half the world's under-25s will be African by 2100
- 3. DR Congo is projected to outgrow the US by 2100
- 4. Kinshasa will soon be bigger than Paris and London combined
- 5. Two-thirds of the world's mobile money moves in Africa
- 6. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
- 7. Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024
- 8. DR Congo mines three-quarters of the world's cobalt
- 9. Most people in Africa are still offline
- 10. Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste
- 11. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
- 12. Nigeria's cities now hold more people than Japan's
- 13. Sudan now has the world's most people displaced at home
- 14. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
- 15. Six of the ten fastest-growing big cities are African
- 16. Africa now has more hungry people than Asia
- 17. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
- 18. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
- 19. Nigeria now eats more rice than Japan
- 20. More sub-Saharan Africans now have mobile money than bank accounts
- 21. Sub-Saharan Africa's cities now hold more people than Latin America's
- 22. DR Congo tripled its copper mining in ten years
- 23. Nitrogen dioxide over Khartoum fell 39% after war began
- 24. Countries mostly without electricity fell from 33 to 15
- 25. Seven in ten West African mobile money accounts sit idle
- 26. Nigeria became the third-biggest sender of students abroad
- 27. Guinea overtook Australia as the world's biggest bauxite miner
- 28. DR Congo passed Chile in refined copper
- 29. Burkina Faso now sends half its exports to the UAE
- 30. Nouakchott's mobile internet sped from Africa's slowest to top 30
- 31. Nigeria now imports more solar panels than generators
- 32. Zimbabwe climbed to fourth among the world's lithium miners
- 33. Services now employ twice as many Ghanaian women as farms
- 34. Sub-Saharan Africa doubled its grain, mostly by farming more land
- 35. Sub-Saharan Africa added more rural people than the whole world
- 36. France fell from first to third among Côte d'Ivoire's suppliers
- 37. China's car sales to Ethiopia are now mostly electric
- 38. Guinea rose from 17th to second for investment in Africa
- 39. Africa now mines three-quarters of the world's manganese
- 40. Tanzania rose from no graphite to world's third-biggest miner
- 41. DR Congo has more babies each year than the EU
- 42. More Malawians go online than have electricity at home
- 43. Nigeria is now Brazil's biggest supplier of urea fertiliser
- 44. 19 sub-Saharan countries are now mostly urban, up from 7
- 45. Sub-Saharan Africa added 13 million births a year since 2000
- 46. Sub-Saharan Africa now holds 88% of people without electricity
- 47. Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere
- 48. Ethiopia's wheat harvest nearly doubled, mostly from higher yields
- 49. In purchasing power, Egypt overtook Nigeria as Africa's biggest economy
- 50. Kenyans abroad send home more than Kenya receives in aid
Egypt's economy passed Nigeria's in purchasing power and has stayed ahead every year since: $2.39 trillion against $2.26 trillion in 2025.
Growth of Egypt and Nigeria, 2015 to 2025. In 2015 Nigeria's economy was 28% bigger than Egypt's.
Egypt's economy is more than twice South Africa's ($1.03 trillion), the continent's third biggest.
the numbers & method
| Year | Egypt (tn) | Nigeria (tn) | South Africa (tn) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1.09 | 1.39 | 0.76 |
| 2016 | 1.08 | 1.38 | 0.77 |
| 2017 | 1.15 | 1.41 | 0.79 |
| 2018 | 1.30 | 1.47 | 0.78 |
| 2019 | 1.44 | 1.58 | 0.80 |
| 2020 | 1.67 | 1.59 | 0.77 |
| 2021 | 1.73 | 1.66 | 0.84 |
| 2022 | 1.97 | 1.85 | 0.92 |
| 2023 | 2.12 | 1.99 | 0.96 |
| 2024 | 2.23 | 2.12 | 0.99 |
| 2025 | 2.39 | 2.26 | 1.03 |
Claim types Estimate
World Bank, World Development Indicators, edition of 8 Oct 2026, GDP, PPP (NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD, current international dollars), read from the World Bank API via the progrss vault (§4.11, wb-wdi passes value_checks). Egypt (billion int$): 1,085.9 (2015), 1,665.1 (2020), 2,391.5 (2025); Nigeria: 1,393.4, 1,586.7, 2,264.0; South Africa: 760.0, 767.4, 1,029.9. Egypt first exceeded Nigeria in 2020 and led in each of the six years 2020–2025 (gap 4.9% in 2020, 5.6% in 2025). Growth 2015–2025 and ratios are progrss calculations. The IMF World Economic Outlook database (October 2026, PPPGDP) carries the same order and nearly the same values from 2020 (2025: Egypt 2,392.6, Nigeria 2,263.7). Africa's third-biggest economy in this measure is South Africa; Algeria (about 880 billion), Ethiopia and Morocco are smaller. PPP converts output at the price level of each country, so it compares volumes of output; at market exchange rates (IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2026, GDP in current US dollars) Nigeria was larger every year to 2023 ($487 bn against Egypt's $394 bn) and Egypt passed it only in 2024 ($383 bn against $252 bn; 2025: $365 bn against $290 bn), after the naira's fall. Nigeria's dollar decline is the subject of an earlier plate; this one is the output-volume view. 2025 values are estimates in the publisher's edition; no 2026 projection is shown. Claim type: Estimate (modelled PPP series). API last updated 11 Nov 2026, values unchanged. The 2020 crossing coincides with Nigeria's flat COVID year (+0.3% 2019–20); the lead held and widened every year to 2025.
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