We hear a lot about Alibaba and Amazon internationally but in Africa, we hear Jumia. Today, I will be bringing you a few about the Africa’s largest ecommerce store Jumia. It has been holding its name strong in the lips of Africans and listed on the New York Stock exchange on the 12th of April 2019 being the first African tech company to be listed on the NYSE.
Founded by two former employees of Mckinsey & Company, Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara who saw Africa as a home for improvement and a place to colonize the ecommerce market. Starting as an ecommerce site to help facilitate buying and selling as well as fast delivery, the company now goes into other service provision such as booking of flight, recharging of mobile phone airtime, intermediary between businesses and to get loans. Since the infrastructure of Africa is poorly designed, Jumia needed to be able to help with customers get everything they need online in one touch. Having its service in over 12 African countries including Algeria, Uganda, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Tanzania, Rwanda, and other countries.
It is amazing how the company was able to hit a 75% high on the New York Stock Exchange at his first day even though it was in a billion dollar debt. The company was valued at over $3 billion dollars but you know, Jumia problem was just beginning. A former executive sent a mail to Citron research which usually makes commentary on stocks, telling them that its figures were lies and it was involved in fraud. As we all know a simple bad news and the stock price is down, so Jumia stock price tanked 40% in two days.
The heat began to rise when Jumia was said to be a German company meaning it is European as it pays its taxes in Germany and not an African company. This type of news isn’t good for a startup which just did its IPO. Although Jumia might be passing through a lot of challenges currently, I must say that it has brought a new view into online business and ecommerce in Africa.
Reference
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/how-the-amazon-of-africa-came-to-be.html