Nigerian companies fill the first five spots in our table of West Africa’s biggest companies, as might be expected given the size of the country’s economy, but the order of those listings has changed from last year. Airtel Africa stays at the top, and another telecoms company, MTN Nigeria Communications, rises from sixth to second. The latter’s market valuation has jumped from $3.4bn to $11.6bn over the past 12 months, while the third-placed Bua Foods has also enjoyed a rapid rise over the same period, from $4.9bn to $10.4bn.
Nigeria’s domination of the table has actually increased slightly from last year, taking 16 of the West African Top 20, one more than last year, with Côte d’Ivoire’s contingent falling from four to three and Ghana retaining a single entry in the form of telecoms company Scancom. After years of underperformance in Africa’s biggest economy, there are signs of improvement, with Nigeria recording growth of 3.4% in 2024 followed by 3.9% last year, as a result of a slight uptick in oil production, higher oil prices, some economic reforms and a more stable naira, although inflation remains stubbornly high.
The Nigerian companies listed in our table have a combined value of $82.1bn or 10.3% of the Top 250. This is a huge rise on last year’s $39.9bn and 6.7%, as the country’s biggest companies have outperformed even the strong growth seen across the continent as a whole. The telecoms, construction and banking sectors are particularly well represented in the table.
Scancom, which operates as MTN Ghana, enjoyed a huge $3.8bn rise in value to $6.5bn this year. It achieved a 36.2% increase in annual service revenue to 24.4bn cedi ($2.18bn) in 2025, with a 43.5% rise in pre-tax revenue to 14.7bn cedi ($1.3bn). MTN Ghana CEO Stephen Blewett attributed the strong performance to “investment in our network and targeted commercial initiatives that have enhanced the customer experience”.
Nigerian bank First Hold Co takes the final position in our regional table with $1.6bn, far in excess of the $774m Lafarge Africa needed to take the same slot last year. Taken together, all these figures reveal that West Africa’s biggest companies have grown strongly over the past year but it will be interesting to see if this pace of progress can be sustained.
The value of Lafarge Africa has jumped to $2.6bn this year, as it too enjoyed increased construction activity on the back of the country’s huge housing deficit, in line with its bigger rivals. Its pre-tax profits increased by 170.1% to 411.3bn naira ($299m) for 2025. It is increasing production capacity at its Ashaka and Sagamu cement plants to 2m tons/year (mtpa) and 3.5 mtpa respectively, and expects to achieve total capacity of 14 mtpa this year. Lafarge is now controlled by Huaxin Building Materials Group, after previously being majority owned by Swiss firm Holcim.
To see the complete rankings of the Top 250 Companies in Africa 2026, click here.