Standard market research measures the formal layer — the part you can survey. Terrain Intelligence measures the market that actually decides whether you win: the informal majority, the real regulatory timeline, the consumer behaviour recorded where it happens. Every report below is verified, sourced, and written from Abidjan.
Your Francophone exports now enter China duty-free
China zeroed the 8–30% tariff on Ivorian cocoa and every WAEMU commodity — but duty-free is claimed, not automatic, and Côte d'Ivoire is on a 2-year clock.
Read the report →Who really makes money in Francophone Africa now?
The 2017 map said France — currency, troops, politics, language. By 2026 the bases are gone, China took the trade crown, the CFA grip loosened, and Africans are redrawing the map.
Read the report →Follow Who Know Road — why your market report is lying to you about Africa
Fifteen years on the ground, from Abidjan to Kinshasa: the Apple lesson, the trade-bloc reality, the experience gap, and the AI trap. The report is the map — not the terrain.
Read the report →The frontier everyone can see and no one can measure
WAEMU's informal economy runs to ~92% of employment — bigger than Nigeria's, and less measured. Why the market you can't count is the one that decides where capital goes.
Read the report →83% accept mobile money. So why can't my users pay?
The ITC's 2025 e-payments report is right about the appetite and quiet about the rail. Reading the numbers from the ground — where "ça ne marche pas" is still the daily complaint.
Read the report →Interoperability: friction or fiction?
WAEMU's single instant-payment rail was "mandatory" — until it slipped five days before, again. The gap between the announcement and the ground, and what it means for your entry.
Read the report →Côte d'Ivoire's PND 2026–2030: what a 70%-private plan means for your entry
A state betting 70% of a $200bn plan on capital it doesn't control is a demand signal — not a subsidy. Where the tailwind blows, and the gap between ambition and ground.
Read the report →Why well-capitalised firms fail in Francophone Africa within 18 months
Three failure modes that appear in no market report — regulatory timelines, distribution, and relationships — and how terrain intelligence catches them before month 14.
Read the report →- The desire–demand gap — where the market is screaming for something no dashboard is counting.
- The silent-churn pattern — why the users who leave quietly, not the ones who complain loudly, are the real signal.
- The point-of-sale liquidity problem — how payment friction kills conversion at the last step.
- The real regulatory timeline — the sequencing traps and backlogs that turn "90 days" into 14 months.
- Localisation, not translation — the Ivorian and Sahelian registers that decide whether a product reads local or foreign.
- Relationship architecture — the introductions and windows that decide licensing speed and distribution.
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