Note: This is an amusing New Year’s Day market metaphor, not a recommendation to buy or sell anything.
In December 2024, for the “edutainment” of it all, I introduced an African cinema market analysis that framed the sector’s global position as a stock-market metaphor, examining how attention, capital, and institutional capacity tend to develop over time.
Stock markets provide a useful comparison because they describe how interest around an activity (a stock) tends to develop over time: a small group notices an opportunity early; more participants arrive as awareness spreads; expectations sometimes rise faster than real-world capacity; and activity later slows or concentrates once investors confront practical limits. Some leave when progress (potential returns on their investments) proves slower or more difficult to attain than expected. In contrast, others stay and commit to long-term strategies, opting for slower returns that yield far greater rewards in the long run — rewards that, in practice, take the form of power accumulated from sustained presence, ownership, and control over how work gets done.
A year ago, my “African cinema as a stock market story” concluded that the stock itself was in a nascent “Prospector Phase” — a period characterized by early, tentative interest, where potential investors were still “testing the waters” and knowledge of the asset (“African cinema”) was far from mainstream. In essence, using a post-Netflix entry (2016 through the present) timeframe, “African cinema” was still an early-stage startup with huge upside potential.
I use Netflix’s entry into original commissioning in Africa as a starting point because of what arguably followed: three measurable, globally legible shifts: increases in global buyer behavior, capital flow, and trackable overall international attention, rather than isolated activity.
A central question at the start of last year was whether enough foundational work — across infrastructure, training, financing, and market structures — would be done during this early phase to withstand an eventual surge of interest, an inevitable peak, and the correction that typically follows, leading to a more realistic growth trajectory.
The risk was that attention and capital would accelerate faster than the sector’s ability to operate at scale, creating a potential bubble, followed by a pullback once those limits became evident, pushing projects and institutions back toward pre-spike levels — a classic boom-bust cycle.
In investment terms, the phase that typically follows this early volatility “Prospector” period is often called the “Smart Money Phase,” the point when short-term curiosity fades, and backers with a longer-term view step in, looking for evidence of stability and basic ecosystem functionality — whether the ground can actually hold — before committing serious resources.
One year later, as we enter 2026, I thought I’d revisit this stock market framework to reassess. Has the “African cinema” stock moved into the anticipated “Smart Money Phase”?
Based on a comprehensive analysis of industry developments throughout 2025, the answer is a clear and resounding no.
The market has not uniformly advanced. Instead, the “Prospector Phase” has become more complex, characterized by a dramatic divergence in strategy. While some early prospectors have packed up and gone home, others have doubled down, initiating the slow, arduous, and unglamorous work of building the market’s core infrastructure themselves.
The year 2025 was not about a rising tide lifting all boats; it was about consolidation, a sobering reality check (still ongoing), and, we hope, the beginning of a much-needed institutional build-out.
So… Am I a Buyer or Seller of “African Cinema” Stock Right Now?
So, at these levels, I’m a selective buyer, but only with patient capital and a 7-10 year time horizon.
The evidence from 2025 supports this stance for three material reasons. The market is telling you what the real entry cost is — not in dollars, but in patience and infrastructure commitment.
Second, when insiders with years of continental experience are buying at scale, it’s a sign worth heeding. Canal+ is not a naive prospector; it’s been on the continent for many years — even if relatively silent — as an operator that understands the 20-30 year build cycle required and is positioning for dominance when the market matures.
Third, and most critically, markets do not mature without government intervention to build infrastructure, and that intervention is now happening at an increasing pace, albeit not uniformly. However, the failure of the African Union’s African Audio-Visual and Cinema Commission (AACC) to achieve a single ratification means that continental-scale coordination — the kind that would let activity compound as more countries join and attract institutional capital — remains years away.
This is why the 7-10 year horizon is non-negotiable. You are not buying into a market ready to scale; you are buying into the construction phase of the market itself.
I would turn cautious if hype began to outrun operating reality; for example, a rush of look-alike streaming platforms without the ability to operate at scale (I’m looking at you, Nigeria), or box office growth driven mainly by promotional spending that cannot be sustained. Still, signs like these would need to register broadly, showing up across multiple countries, not just one or two.
The 2025 data tells a modest, even sobering, story of a market that is being built by operators, not speculators. The risk here is not a bubble; it is that the build takes longer than even the most patient capital can tolerate. But for those who can wait, the asymmetry is compelling. You are entering at a point where the weak hands are folding, and the serious builders are laying the foundation.
A Still Distant Peak
Closing on the analogy, the “African Cinema” stock market story as we enter 2026 is not ready for a major bull run. The “FOMO surge” predicted in the 2024 piece feels even further away than the decade I originally estimated. The market is still firmly in the Prospector Phase, but it’s a more mature and discerning one.
Answers to key questions posed a year ago:
– Who stays after the initial assessment? Not everyone. The challenges are real and will scare off those without a long-term, high-risk tolerance. The players who are staying are those with deep pockets and a strategic, multi-decade vision.
– What foundations are being laid? The most important foundations being laid are institutional. At the national level, a wave of new film policies, funds, infrastructure builds, and training initiatives is creating the conditions for future growth. At the corporate level, ongoing consolidations — including the formation of African Film Press (AFP) — are attempts to build pan-African mainstays.
However, the “African cinema” stock market story remains fundamentally unsupported by the kind of broad, transparent data and harmonized policy that would attract “smart money” at scale. Traditional theatrical revenue is concentrated in a handful of hubs, and the promise of continental-level coordination remains just that: a promise.
A crash has not come because the peak is not even on the horizon.
The “African Cinema” stock market story of 2025 was a growing recognition that genuine, irreversible progress depends on the slow, unglamorous, but essential work of building industry from the ground up.
“Buy, buy, buy!” — with a long-term outlook.
Note: Again, as with the entire exercise, this is a way of thinking about market behavior, not a call to trade anything.
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