“African Amazon”: Is Jumia an African Startup?

Jumia is the leading and largest E-commerce platform in Africa Operating in more than 10 African countries. These countries Include Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Tanzania,  Ivory Coast, Uganda, Senegal, Cameroon, and Mali. Jumia was Founded back in 2012 by two French entrepreneurs debuted on the New York Stock Market. Furthermore, Jumia listed seventeen percent of the company at $14.5 per share making it worth over one billion dollars. This listing raised a question of whether Jumia is 100% African startup.

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Why Jumia is an African Startup.

Despite most operations taking place in Africa, Jumia is incorporated in Germany where it pays most of the taxes and has its headquarters in Dubai and the tech survey based in Portugal. The subsidiaries also pay taxes to the local countries. In addition, Jumia has provided more than 5,000 job opportunities and this is enough proof that Jumia is 99% an African startup. This is because most of its operations are carried out by more than 5,000 Africans. Being listed as the first African tech startup will pave the way to others on the American Wall Street.

Losses

The dubbed African Amazon made a Pre-tax loss of KES 14 billion in 2018, 1.5 more from the previous year 2017 of KES 12.5 billion. Despite having more than 4 million customers across the continent the company has not made any significant profits since its foundation. Now the company is seeking to raise KES 19.6b equivalent to $196m for future investment and shareholders in the NYSE.

Despite the losses made last year the sales grew by more than 40% to ($147.3m). In addition, the company is encouraging more people to shop on the platform and hopefully, things will change after this event. It is estimated that only one percent of Africans do their shopping online. The reason being lack of visa & MasterCard to the low-class and the middle-class. The integration with mobile money from Safaricom and MTN  has helped to boost its sales.