The Outlier

Friday is The Outlier newsletter day. A quick peek at what we have for later today. Not yet a reader? 🤯 Join us now: https://lnkd.in/dy-Vuc3R

Friday is The Outlier newsletter day. Another good edition packed with data coming up. Now back to work. See you later in the newsletter. PS. not yet a reader? Join the almost 12k Outlier readers to make sure you get your copy later today: https://lnkd.in/dy-Vuc3R

👀 Want to level up your data visualisation skills? For the past few years, I’ve been curating a personal list of tools, resources and libraries I rely on when working with data and charts. After sharing earlier versions with supporters of @outlierafrica, I’ve compiled the full list into a downloadable guide which is now over 15 pages long and with 100+ resources. 🚀 Whether you're looking for charting libraries, design inspiration, cleaning tools or storytelling tips, the guide covers just about everything. And for a limited time, it’s available for free. 👉 Grab your copy here: https://lnkd.in/dMa9eDBP I'm planning an update later this year, but the current edition is still packed with useful, up-to-date links. 💬 Let me know if there’s a great tool you think I should include in the next edition.

You've heard about the 'stories behind the news'. At The Outlier we do the 'data behind the stories', every Friday. Subscribers get it free and first. Subscribe to get the latest data and charts while they're 🔥 https://lnkd.in/dy-Vuc3R

What can you buy for R5? Not much. In our last newsletter we worked with The Shoprite Group of Companies to look at the cost increases for essentials like petrol and bread since 2016. We used April 2016 as a starting point because that is when Shoprite started selling brown bread in its stores for R5. It now sells close to 570,000 loaves a week. Shoprite shared some other details: - 569,995 loaves subsidised weekly - 847,000 R5 deli meals sold in the 2024 financial year - Shoprite also introduced R5 sanitary pads in March 2021 Today around 1.8-million R5 products are sold every week by Shoprite. https://lnkd.in/d9yuSNvA

Fuel is up, again. Shoprite’s 600g loaf of brown bread? Still R5. Unchanged since 2016. The Outlier #ShopriteGroup #ThePowerofR5 

Only 32 countries in the world host AI-focused data centres and fewer than 20% of those are in the Southern Hemisphere. The vast majority of the data centres are clustered around Europe and the UK, in the United States and in China. 90% of the world’s AI data centres are controlled by either the US or China. South Africa is the only country on the entire continent of Africa with AI data centres. A new study from Oxford University has sparked many and much-needed debates about the future of AI and who ultimately controls it and who has access to it. The entire continent of Africa, apart from a pocket South Africa, and most of South America has none of the infrastructure required to build, train and run AI models. As University of Pretoria’s ABSA Chair of Data Science Vukosi Marivate: “This divide isn’t just about technology. It means limited innovation, lost competitiveness, brain drain, lack of data sovereignty, and the economic benefits of AI flowing elsewhere. Access to compute is no longer optional—it’s essential for digital sovereignty and for shaping our own AI future.” This was one of the charts in the most recent The Outlier newsletter https://lnkd.in/d9yuSNvA

Africans lost more than $70-million in rejected Schengen visa fees in 2024. Nigerians where hit particularly hard with more than 45% of applications made being rejected, followed by residents of Ghana who saw 44.5% of their applications rejected. Each Schengen visa application costs €90 (around R1,800) and is non-refundable. Data from the European Commission shows that there were 111,201 applications by Nigerians for Schengen visas in 2024, and only 58,808 of those were granted. That means that almost $5-million was spent (and lost) by Nigerians who had their visa applications turned down. South Africans fare a lot better than the rest of the continent when applying for visas. A relatively small 5.6% of the 193,768 visas applied for in 2024 were rejected. This still amounts to more than $1-million in lost fees (ZAR 19.7-million to be exact), even if it is a lot less than the rest of the continent. The average rejection rate for Schengen visas for all countries is 16.9% while the rejection rate for African applications is 27%. From The Outlier's week-in-charts newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dHpwv3XM Not yet an The Outlier subscriber? Sign up for the free Friday data briefing: https://lnkd.in/dy-Vuc3R

A significant portion of South Africa’s budget is spent on servicing debt – R389-billion in 2024, according to the National Treasury. This exceeds allocations for basic education (R323-billion), health (R274-billion) and peace and security (R250-billion). Debt service costs surpassed basic education spending after the 2021/22 financial year. The year before, debt repayment was the government’s fourth biggest expense after basic education, social protection and health. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dWw8GAvr

The government has set a target to grow GDP by 3%, a level not achieved in recent years. While challenges like energy shortages and inefficiencies in transport and logistics continue to affect economic progress, the outlook for 2025 is more positive. In 2023, growth was just 0.7%, and the International Monetary Fund has projected a modest 0.8% for 2024. Growth for 2025 is expected to pick up to 1.5%, driven by improvements in electricity generation, relaxed monetary policies and renewed investor and consumer confidence after the 2024 national election. We measured the true state of the nation in 10 charts. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dWw8GAvr