Known as the City of Gold, it comes as no surprise that Joburg is the city with the biggest spenders in South Africa.
According to the Spend Trend Report 2024 by Discovery Bank and VISA, Joburgers are SA’s biggest spenders with Cape Town and Durban following suit.
The report looked at Visa and Discovery’s extensive datasets on consumer credit card spend behaviour to understand consumer spending habits across 14 cities locally and worldwide, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Accra, Lagos, Barcelona London and Sydney.
“These cities were chosen based on economic and market data to provide relevant comparisons.
“The Visa dataset analysed included more than 60 million credit cards, covering in excess of 13 billion transactions between 2019 and 2023.
“The selected international cities have a combined population of more than 100 million people and a GDP of nearly US$ 4 trillion,” read the report.
The report found that Johannesburg residents spent 47% more than the average South African, Capetonians spent 38% more than the average South African while Durbanites spent 13% more than the average South African.
It was also found that among these cities, spending increased the most in Cape Town, rising by 6% and this growth was driven by above-average spending increases on groceries, eating out, and travel compared to other cities.
The data also found that despite a challenging environment, South Africans showed economic resilience compared with other global cities as spending is rising among affluent and high net worth segments, with a slight decrease in the mass segment due to rising living costs.
“Compared to cities in emerging and developed countries, South African cities demonstrate more stable spending patterns year-on-year and less fluctuation in spending across different market segments,” highlighted the report.