Jumia Technologies Monday released its 2019 first quarter results to show strong momentum in gross merchandise volume (GMV) growth of 58 percent Year-on-Year (YoY), which the company says it will leverage to continue driving monetisation improvement, already visible in its 102 percent market place revenue growth.
The company, which suffered a sharp fall in its share price by over 50 percent after being accused of fraud by Citron, showed strong improvements in its books, with an addition of 1.3 million active consumers.
Sacha Poigonnec, co-CEO and co-founder of Jumia Technologies said: “We see a lot of great momentum in the business, especially as we delivered on our four major pillars which are to grow GMV, increase monetization, drive Jumia pay and improve efficiency.”
In Q1 2019, Jumia reduced operating loss by 3.56 percent, grew marketing and advertising by over 200 percent and sustained Jumia Pay momentum with a 50 million euro investment by Mastercard. This is a strategic deal that will help Jumia reduce the numbers from payment on delivery and spread its payment platform across other markets.
“We are seeing appetite from international sellers on the e-commerce platform, with keen interest to sell in Africa and you will see more of these partnerships in the future. We have already rolled out Jumia Pay in three new markets after being launched in Nigeria and Egypt and in the next few months, we will launch in other markets where we operate but for now, it’s too early to talk about how fast the evolution from prepaid to post-paid is,” Poigonnec said during a conference call to announce the results on Monday.
Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson
