The growth e-commerce has experienced in Africa in the past decade is enormous and no other company champions that as much as Jumia.
Jumia is the biggest e-commerce platform in Africa.
While it is true that e-commerce is growing in Africa, the potential is still really high and isn’t even being maximized yet. There are about 303 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, and only about 28% are connected to the internet, according to the 2021 GSMA mobile economy report.
That number is expected to increase to 40% in the next three years.
With more people connecting to the internet, more people are becoming exposed to shopping online. E-commerce platforms are expected to experience increased demands in the coming years.
Jumia is already reaping the benefits of being at the forefront of e-commerce in Africa.
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According to a report by A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report made by Jumia, the value of goods sold by the pan-African e-commerce platform over the Black Friday season grew by 30% this year to reach $150 million.
Jumia started Black Friday sales in 2012. The sales run from the first Friday of November to the end of the month.
This year, orders made increased by 39 percentage points to reach 4.3 million as the number of Jumia merchants also rose by 11 percentage points to 46,000.
The platform also had 40 million unique visitors, a 27 percentage points increase during the Black Friday season.
Reports have shown the most popular products on the site as consumables, beauty and fashion items. This new development is a result of the platform’s launch of more dark stores in a bid to expand its grocery category.
That move according to Q3 results, seems to be paying off. But profitability for the NYSE-listed firm remains elusive.
Jumia said during their SEC filing that “Our consumers are increasingly turning to Jumia for their everyday needs with the top three fastest-growing physical goods categories in volume terms being fast-moving consumer goods (‘FMCG’), followed by beauty and fashion.”
During a past interview with TechCrunch, “Jumia attributed the shift in shopping habits to the stay-at-home restrictions that fueled the need for online shopping as well as the youthful population that is quick to adopt new trends and the increasing smartphone and internet penetration across the continent. Smartphones contribute the most (75%) traffic to the e-commerce site, meaning that as more people get connected, online shoppers are set to increase. Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya account for most of the online sales on Jumia.”
Jumia logistics handled 5.3 million package deliveries over the Black Friday season. That figure according to Jumia was “more than double the average monthly package volume in the first 10 months of 2021.”
