As South Africa continues to navigate economic uncertainty, shifting consumer habits, and rapid digital adoption, the Marketing All Products Survey (MAPS) offers a clear lens into how households are adapting. Comparing results from January–December 2023 and January–December 2024, several significant trends stand out, from spending patterns and brand loyalty to media consumption and financial strain.
Household’s Economic Pressures Deepening
The cost-of-living crisis remained central in 2024. Average household income showed only modest increases, while inflation continued to erode purchasing power. In 2023, average household income clustered around R10,349 per month, with stronger segments above R12,000. By 2024, while reported averages rose in nominal terms, real disposable income declined, leaving many households no better off.
This pressure is most visible in spending behaviour. The frequency of eating out and fast-food consumption, which had already dropped by almost a quarter between 2021 and 2023, declined even further in 2024. Weekly dining occasions were down nearly 30% compared to pre-crisis levels and monthly eating out has shown a market decline in 2024. Similarly, South Africans’ ability to save or invest continued to shrink – a 48% drop in 2024 compared to 2021, reflecting the depletion of household buffers.
DStv subscriptions tell another story of economic strain. Premium and mid-tier packages contracted sharply, with declines of 67% and 53% since 2021, while entry-level packages such as EasyView surged by 139%, showing a clear consumer shift to affordability.
Brand Loyalty and Consumption Patterns Shifting
One of the most telling consumer shifts has been in brand loyalty. By the end of 2023, loyalty to staple categories like groceries and toiletries, had already weakened compared to earlier years. Interestingly, cosmetics have remained fairly stable over this time period. In 2024, the trend seems to have stabilised: more consumers reported “always buying the same brands,” across all three discretionary categories – cosmetics, signalling growing price sensitivity.
The average grocery basket continued to shrink. While the nominal monthly grocery spend rose from R2,050 in 2023 to over R2,100 in 2024, this increase barely kept up with inflation. Consumers were paying more but getting less — substituting downwards, buying in smaller quantities, and prioritising essentials. Apparel spending also reflected tightening belts, with men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing purchases contracting in real terms.
Digital and Media Consumption Transforming
The media landscape has undergone profound transformation. Television penetration declined further: in 2023, just over half the adult population watched TV in the past week, but by 2024 penetration had risen slightly to 60%. While DStv still commands large audiences, its penetration fell remained at a low 41% in 2024, a marked decline from earlier years.
In contrast, digital and streaming platforms surged. On-demand streaming penetration grew to 21% of the adult population in 2024, with Netflix and YouTube dominating access. South Africans also leaned more heavily into social media, maintaining a high penetration of 73% in 2024, matching the peak levels seen in 2023. Crucially, over 25% of adults now spend more than 20 hours per week on social platforms — suggesting a structural shift in how attention and advertising value are distributed.
Radio listenership, once the backbone of South African media, also declined. Weekly listenership dropped to 45% in 2024, compared to over 50% in 2023. Younger audiences, in particular, are spending more time with podcasts and audio streaming services, fragmenting the once-dominant radio market.
Financial Behaviour Reflects – Household’s Under Stress
South Africans’ borrowing behaviour reveals mounting household pressure. In 2024, the top reason for loans at 38% included paying bills, food, and medical expenses — a sharp departure from earlier years where education, vehicles, and home improvements featured more prominently. The rising use of debt to cover basic consumption signals structural vulnerabilities in household balance sheets.
Meanwhile, participation in stokvels (31%), funeral policies (32%), and other communal saving instruments remained resilient, showing that collective financial mechanisms like receiving transfers (33%) and sending money (33%) still anchor many families.
GeoScope Provides Spatial Intelligence to MAPS
Behind these insights lies the rigorous fieldwork and advanced geospatial intelligence of GeoScope South Africa. As the Market Research Foundation’s key geospatial partner in implementing MAPS, GeoScope assists with the provision of the sampling frame, production of all the fieldwork maps and conducting quality control of the fieldwork implemented by Plus 94 to ensure accuracy of the survey. These contributions make MAPS the most sophisticated consumer survey of its type in South Africa’s history.
Our contribution extends beyond data collection. Using our proprietary GeoMAPS data product, we enrich MAPS data with a spatial context – mapping consumer behaviour, overlaying demographic estimates, and enabling market segmentation at neighbourhood levels. This ensures that businesses, advertisers, and marketers not only see national shifts, but also understand where these shifts are happening.
GeoScope also leverages AI-powered analytics to interpret longitudinal changes, allowing stakeholders to forecast emerging trends with confidence. This unique combination of on-the-ground survey expertise and cutting-edge geospatial intelligence positions MAPS as one of the most comprehensive consumer surveys on the continent.
GeoMAPS – Turning Consumer Data Into Location Intelligence for Smarter Growth
GeoMAPS is more than just an analytical tool — it is a market intelligence framework that transforms the MAPS dataset into actionable insights. By integrating geospatial layers with consumer behaviour data, GeoMAPS allows businesses to pinpoint where market opportunities exist and what those opportunities are and understanding why these occur within that geographic location. This location-specific intelligence is critical for industries such as retail, FMCG, and financial services, where proximity, accessibility, and regional dynamics determine customer engagement and sales performance.
At its core, GeoMAPS unlocks the ability to segment consumers spatially and demographically, enabling hyper-targeted planning. Retailers, for example, can identify underserved areas for store expansion, optimise existing branch networks, and assess competitive presence. For advertisers and media planners, GeoMAPS highlights the reach and resonance of campaigns across geographies, ensuring that resources are directed to the most impactful markets. This precision reduces risk and maximises return on investment, making it an indispensable tool in South Africa’s evolving consumer landscape.
Beyond immediate business applications, GeoMAPS plays a vital role in strategic foresight. Its predictive modelling capabilities help organisations anticipate future demand shifts, adapt to urbanisation trends, and align product development with changing consumer needs. By bridging the gap between large-scale survey data and geospatial analytics, GeoMAPS empowers both the private and public sectors to make evidence-based decisions that drive inclusive growth. In doing so, it cements its position as a critical enabler of data-driven transformation across the South African market research ecosystem.
Adapting Under Pressure – Reshaping South Africa’s Consumer Landscape
The MAPS data of 2023 & 2024 highlights a nation under pressure but also adapting with agility. Consumers are trading down, shifting to affordable entertainment and food options, and spending more time in digital spaces. For marketers and businesses, the key takeaway is clear – price sensitivity, value-driven loyalty, and digital engagement will define consumer strategy in 2025 and beyond.
As South Africa evolves, GeoScope and the Market Research Foundation remain committed to providing the granular, geospatially validated insights that enable smarter decision-making – ensuring that brands, policymakers, and investors can navigate with confidence in these uncertain times with global conflicts impacting supply chains and tariffs potentially driving costs up in various economic sectors of the supply chain.
