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High turnover among field agents could cost African businesses up to N72 million for every 100 agents, according to the 2026 African Sales Intelligence Report by Laddar Africa.
African companies with 100 field agents could face recurring replacement costs of between N18 million and N72 million, and that figure does not include the customer relationships that can be lost with departing agents.
The report identifies agent attrition as a major challenge for businesses that rely on field teams to acquire customers, distribute products and operate across multiple territories.
What the report is saying
According to Laddar Africa, replacing a field agent costs between 0.5x and 2x their annual salary after accounting for recruitment, training and lost productivity.
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- “Replacing a field agent costs between 0.5x and 2x their annual salary when recruitment, training, and lost productivity are accounted for,” the report said.
- “For a team of 100 agents with 44% annual turnover, this represents a recurring cost of N18 million to N72 million,” it added.
Laddar said field-agent turnover in Nigeria and Kenya averages 44% annually, while it exceeds 60% in some telecommunications and FMCG territories.
The report said the cost of attrition goes beyond recruiting and training replacement workers because departing agents can also take customer relationships, route knowledge and contact data that were never formally captured by their employers.
- “Each departing agent takes with them customer relationships, route knowledge, and contact data that was never formally recorded,” the report said.
This creates an additional risk for companies whose customer information is stored on individual agents’ phones rather than within company systems.
Laddar estimates that more than 4.2 million field agents are active across sub-Saharan Africa, while 71% of companies surveyed plan to expand their field teams over the next 12 months.
In Nigeria, the average enterprise field team has grown by 34% since 2022, driven by expansion into new territories, post-pandemic recovery and aggressive distribution mandates from consumer brands.
Get up to speed
Nigeria’s agent-based business ecosystem has expanded rapidly, particularly through the growth of Point-of-Sale (PoS) operations.
- In 2024, the number of deployed PoS terminals more than doubled to 5.5 million, up 129% from 2.4 million at the end of 2023, while registered terminals increased to 7.8 million.
- By March 2025, Nigeria had 8.3 million registered PoS terminals, with 5.9 million deployed, while industry representatives put the number of PoS agents at more than 1.9 million nationwide.
- The rapid expansion has also brought tighter regulatory scrutiny.
- In 2025, the Central Bank of Nigeria directed financial institutions to submit detailed monthly reports on their PoS agents, including transaction activity, fraud incidents, customer complaints and other agent-level information.
The regulator subsequently introduced new agent-banking rules that took effect from April 1, 2026, including a requirement for agents to operate exclusively with a single financial institution or super-agent, alongside stricter requirements around agent locations and devices.
What you should know
Customer data is becoming increasingly important to Nigeria’s agent ecosystem, drawing greater regulatory scrutiny.
- In July 2026, the Federal High Court upheld the Nigeria Data Protection Commission’s authority to require PoS agents to register as Data Controllers and Processors of Major Importance (DCPMIs) under the Nigeria Data Protection Act.
- The ruling followed a legal challenge by a PoS agent seeking to prevent the NDPC from imposing the registration requirement.
The court held that the registration framework was consistent with the objectives of the data-protection law and would allow the regulator to identify organisations involved in significant data processing and monitor their compliance.
