How the leaders of the digital economy in Africa got through the year 2020
Audio 02:23
A smartphone displays food delivery service applications.
(Illustrative photo) SOPA Images / LightRocket via Gett - SOPA Images
By: Olivier Rogez Follow
6 mins
Jumia, the African leader in e-commerce and Gozem, one of the leading startups in the urban transport niche, saw with relief the end of a difficult year 2020 for their activities in Africa.
And to restart, these companies, both founded by young French people, have a recipe: innovation and investment.
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Established in eleven African countries, Jumia is the African equivalent of the American giant Amazon.
The company co-founded by Sacha Poignonnec has had a difficult 2020.
“
On the one hand, customers could go on shopping in stores and supermarkets quite quietly, but on the other hand, we had a lot of constraints in terms of logistics and constraints also in terms of supply, with our sellers who had difficulty importing or moving their goods,
”says the entrepreneur.
Gozem, who, since 2018, has been offering a motorbike taxi reservation service in Togo and Benin via a mobile application, has had a hard time with curfews and school closures.
"
This translated into a reduction in our activity of about 4%, so obviously it was not very good news for a startup that is starting to grow and which, above all, needs external funds to continue to develop.
But this enabled us to use our resources to improve our offer,
”explains Grégory Costamagna, co-founder of Gozem.
For him, improving the offer means both diversifying services and conquering new markets.
“
We are developing our 'super-app' strategy with an e-commerce offer that developed during the Covid-19.
And in the fourth quarter we bought the leader in food delivery in Togo.
Finally, we are expanding into new markets, since we will open Gabon within thirty days and we will go to Cameroon in the next quarter.
"
At Jumia, Sacha Poignonnec made the same bet.
After launching Jumia Food, a meal delivery service and Jumia Pay, a mobile payment service, the African number one in e-commerce is making its logistics chain profitable by putting it at the service of third-party companies.
“
Until now, only Jumia sellers could use Jumia logistics.
And they could do that for packets that matched Jumia transactions.
Today, thanks to this openness, not only our 'sellers', our sellers, can route packages that are linked to other parts of their business, but also third-party companies, SMEs or others, can use Jumia Logistic to ensure the shipping and delivery of their package.
For example, we have a bank in Nigeria that ships credit cards to its customers via Jumia logistics
, ”says Sacha poonnec.
If Gozem expects its first profits from 2023, Jumia, now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, does not risk setting a date.
But Jumia is improving its profitability ratios and now has more than seven million customers in Africa.
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