No formal proxy
Traditional trade in Uganda
Uganda has one of the thinnest formal retail layers in East Africa, and it is not thickening.
Supermarkets take under 15 percent of grocery sales. There is no formal proxy here to infer the market from, because the market does not pass through formal tills.
- <15%
- Of grocery sales in supermarkets
- 14.7M
- Mobile money active users
- 241,100
- Mobile money agents
- Jul 2026
- First oil targeted
[ Uganda at a glance ]
- Formal share
- Supermarkets take under 15 percent of Ugandan grocery sales.
- Channel structure
- Dukas, kiosks, roadside vendors and open-air markets carry Ugandan volume on affordability, proximity and informal credit.
- Geography
- Kampala anchors the Ugandan trade, with Entebbe, Jinja and Mbarara as secondary centers and trading centers carrying the rest.
- Formal retail
- Uganda's largest international grocer exited in 2021 after 21 years, and its successor now operates a handful of stores alongside local chains.
- Payments
- Uganda's leading mobile money operator counts 14.7 million active users across 241,100 agents.
- What is coming
- First oil from Uganda's Lake Albert projects is targeted for July 2026 and is expected to lift growth sharply.
The trade in Uganda
Dukas, kiosks, roadside vendors and open-air markets carry the volume on affordability, proximity and informal credit. Kampala anchors, with Entebbe, Jinja and Mbarara as secondary centers and trading centers carrying the rest.
[ The largest international grocer exited in 2021, after 21 years. ]
/a
Dukas and kiosks
Volume moves on affordability, proximity and informal credit.
/b
Kampala and after
Entebbe, Jinja and Mbarara are the secondary centers, and trading centers carry the rest.
/c
The formal layer
The largest international grocer left in 2021, and its successor runs a handful of stores alongside local chains.
<15%
of Ugandan grocery sales pass through supermarkets.
How stock reaches the shelf
Distributor and wholesale routes run into a duka base that buys small and often. Mobile money is the payment rail throughout, with the leading operator counting 14.7 million active users across 241,100 agents, which describes how money moves and nothing about which SKU moved at what price.
Supply
Distributors + wholesale
Replenishment reaches the duka one step removed from where it can be observed.
Decision
Small and often
The duka buys in small quantities at high frequency, so assortment is re-decided constantly.
Outcome
The shelf
Mobile money clears the payment, and the shelf itself stays unrecorded.
- Mobile money is the payment rail throughout the Ugandan trade.
- Wallet data records how money moves and nothing about which SKU moved at what price.
What conventional measurement misses
Rising income here will not build supermarkets fast enough to matter. It widens baskets in the duka, in specific districts first, and there is no till to read that from.
First oil from the Lake Albert projects is targeted for July 2026 and is expected to lift growth sharply, which makes the question of whether distribution is already in place a dated one.
14.7M
active mobile money users across 241,100 agents — a record of payment, not of purchase.
The question is not whether growth comes. It is whether distribution is already in place.
How Native reads Uganda
Lattice maps the duka universe so coverage can be built where income lands first. Store-level conditions are captured continuously across the channels carrying the volume, and Ratio One reads whether share moved, so demand is visible forming rather than reconstructed afterward.
- <15%
- Of grocery sales in supermarkets
- Jul 2026
- First oil targeted
- District
- Level at which income lands first