Listed domestic companies, total - Country Ranking - Africa

Definition: Listed domestic companies, including foreign companies which are exclusively listed, are those which have shares listed on an exchange at the end of the year. Investment funds, unit trusts, and companies whose only business goal is to hold shares of other listed companies, such as holding companies and investment companies, regardless of their legal status, are excluded. A company with several classes of shares is counted once. Only companies admitted to listing on the exchange are included.

Source: World Federation of Exchanges database.

See also: Thematic map, Time series comparison

Find indicator:
Rank Country Value Year
1 South Africa 264.00 2020
2 Egypt 240.00 2020
3 Nigeria 177.00 2020
4 Mauritius 93.00 2020
5 Tunisia 80.00 2020
6 Morocco 75.00 2020
7 Zimbabwe 69.00 1999
8 Kenya 60.00 2020
9 Côte d'Ivoire 46.00 2020
10 Seychelles 40.00 2020
11 Ghana 31.00 2020
12 Botswana 26.00 2018
13 Zambia 23.00 2020
14 Tanzania 22.00 2020
15 Namibia 13.00 2020
16 Eswatini 6.00 2007
17 Rwanda 4.00 2019

More rankings: Africa | Asia | Central America & the Caribbean | Europe | Middle East | North America | Oceania | South America | World |

Development Relevance: Stock market size can be measured in various ways, and each may produce a different ranking of countries. The development of an economy's financial markets is closely related to its overall development. Well-functioning financial systems provide good and easily accessible information which can lower transaction costs and subsequently improve resource allocation and boosts economic growth. Both banking systems and stock markets enhance growth, the main factor in poverty reduction. At low levels of economic development commercial banks tend to dominate the financial system, while at higher levels domestic stock markets tend to become more active and efficient relative to domestic banks. Open economies with sound macroeconomic policies, good legal systems, and shareholder protection attract capital and therefore have larger financial markets. Recent research on stock market development shows that modern communications technology and increased financial integration have resulted in more cross-border capital flows, a stronger presence of financial firms around the world, and the migration of stock exchange activities to international exchanges. Many firms in emerging markets now cross-list on international exchanges, which provides them with lower cost capital and more liquidity-traded shares. However, this also means that exchanges in emerging markets may not have enough financial activity to sustain them, putting pressure on them to rethink their operations.

Limitations and Exceptions: Data cover measures of size (market capitalization, number of listed domestic companies) and liquidity (value of shares traded as a percentage of gross domestic product, value of shares traded as a percentage of market capitalization). The comparability of such data across countries may be limited by conceptual and statistical weaknesses, such as inaccurate reporting and differences in accounting standards.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: A company is considered domestic when it is incorporated in the same country as where the exchange is located. The only exception is the case of foreign companies which are exclusively listed on an exchange (i.e., the foreign company is not listed on any other exchange as defined in the domestic market capitalization definition).

Aggregation method: Sum

Periodicity: Annual

General Comments: Stock market data were previously sourced from Standard & Poor's until they discontinued their "Global Stock Markets Factbook" and database in April 2013. Time series have been replaced in December 2015 with data from the World Federation of Exchanges and