That fashion has been active for a while... Southeast Asian terror organizations have been referred to as "Al Qaeda Franchises" since not long after 9/11. I think it's just a device used by lazy people who don't want to bother trying to understand various regional realities. The "franchise" idea sounds nice and neat, as if there's a coherent organizational chart somewhere with everybody in a nice clean pigeonhole... it just doesn't connect very well to reality.
Evangelical pastors in Africa aren't referred to as "Billy Graham franchisees" . Very lazy way of looking at this phenomena which is just as religious as Evangelical Christianity.

We in Nigeria know that a Sufi influenced Islam was overshadowed by a Salafist Izala Movement which prepared the ground for violent Salafist organisations like Boko Haram.