E-Business
Jumia Sees Growth in First Quarter 2022 Results
Jumia Technologies AG (“Jumia” or the “Company”) announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2022.
“We kicked off 2022 with very strong growth momentum, closing the first quarter with the highest GMV and Order growth rates of the past 9 quarters, up 27% and 40% year-over-year respectively.
“In parallel with accelerating usage growth, we continued driving platform monetization, with revenue growing by 44% year- over-year, which was also a 9-quarter high,” commented Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, Co-Chief Executive Officers of Jumia.
“We remain focused on taking the business forward on our path to profitability, driving faster usage growth with improved levels of marketing efficiency. Sales & Advertising expense per Order and as % of GMV decreased sequentially, both reaching their lowest levels in the past 4 quarters, at $2.0 per Order and 7.5% of GMV respectively. We are executing on our strategy with discipline and consistency. Our focus continues to be on making Jumia a compelling destination for the everyday needs of African consumers and a growth engine for sellers and businesses in Africa and beyond.”
First Quarter 2022- Business Highlights
- Growth Acceleration Initiatives
In the first quarter of 2022, we continued executing on our growth acceleration strategy building upon the momentum of the second half of 2021, continuing to scale the business towards profitability.
The key levers of our growth acceleration plan remain consistent:
Sustained marketing investments on a multi-channel basis, to drive consumer awareness, adoption and retention.
Enhanced assortment relevance with a focus on everyday product categories.
Improved pricing and shipping policy.
Improved customer experience and convenience through platform enhancements.
We have outlined below relevant developments in the first quarter of 2022 with respect to each one of these levers.
Marketing
- Brand awareness and consideration are core pillars of our marketing strategy and key to foster customer trust. We were pleased to see Jumia ranked #6 in the 2021 Most Influential Brands survey in Egypt released by Ipsos in March 2022. The ‘Most Influential Brands Survey’ is a global Ipsos initiative, covering 14 markets and close to 800 brands worldwide.
2021 was the second edition of the survey in Egypt with 118 brands assessed across 14 categories. In 2021, Jumia progressed from the 7th to the 6th position of the ranking, maintaining its leadership within the digital and e-commerce category of the survey.
Assortment, pricing and shipping
As part of our efforts to become the digital destination in Africa for everyday needs, we are expanding our assortment in the everyday categories and further enhancing our partnerships with sellers and brands.
Between December 31, 2021 and March 31, 2022, we added almost one million SKUs in the FMCG category, the highest number of SKU adds in this category in the past 8 quarters. We also established pan-African partnerships with each of Coca-Cola and Danone across both our e-commerce and food delivery platforms.
Price competitiveness is a key component of the Jumia value proposition for consumers, particularly in a more challenging macro environment that drives increased consumer price sensitivity. We are upgrading our price benchmarking tool into an automated system covering the full product assortment of Jumia, incorporating data from both online and offline channel checks.
The new system leverages machine learning algorithms to match images and product features enhancing the speed and accuracy of screening and matching. It also allows for real-time price adjustment with dedicated modules for margin optimization.
We are rolling out a free shipping program in select countries allowing consumers living in the main cities to benefit from next-day free shipping on Jumia Express items and basket sizes exceeding a minimum threshold. Jumia Express is an end-to-end logistics service provided to sellers where items are stored in our warehouse and picked and packed by Jumia.
We expect the free shipping initiative to drive consumer adoption and overall usage growth. While we will be foregoing consumer shipping fees – booked under Fulfillment revenue – we expect to better monetize the Jumia Express service – booked under Value Added Service revenue – as we expect sellers to benefit from sales uplift as a result of the free shipping roll-out.
Technology: Platform enhancements
We continue to invest in our technology backbone and front-end projects in particular, to make our platforms even more easy-to-use and engaging.
During the first quarter of 2022, we continued working on an overhaul of our homepage and product pages to simplify navigation and product discovery. Key developments included creating stronger hierarchy of content on the homepage and more informative product pages with larger pictures and additional information such as available stock quantity for flash sales and promotions.
We intend to further enhance user experience with incremental improvements to our product search algorithms and filtering modules, while increasing personalization throughout the stages of the user journey.
- JUMIA PAY UPDATE
In April 2022, JumiaPay was granted the Payment Service Solution Provider (“PSSP”) license by the Central Bank of Nigeria, which allows us to process payments on behalf of third-party businesses in Nigeria.
In parallel, we continued expanding the range of everyday digital and financial services available to consumers on the JumiaPay app.
In Nigeria, JumiaPay is working with the CGAP, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, which is a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations, focused on financial inclusion to improve the lives of lower income populations.
As part of this partnership, we are piloting an e-doctor service on the JumiaPay app in collaboration with a third-party service provider, “Meeting Doctors”. The objective of this service is to help workers, sellers and consumers in general access doctors remotely for a monthly subscription fee of around $1. The experiment will help validate the value delivered to our customers and workers and identify a sustainable model to achieve this.
- MONETIZATION UPDATE
Logistics services to third parties
- We are making significant progress on the roll-out of our logistics services to third parties. Packages shipped during the first quarter of 2022 reached a new record of 3.5 million, on behalf of over 1,250 clients, an increase of more than 200 clients compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.
Advertising
Our advertising activity experienced strong momentum during the first quarter of 2022, with 484 advertising campaigns, up 55% year-over-year, on behalf of almost 9,000 advertising clients, a 24% year-over-year increase. Advertising clients during the quarter included high profile brand partners such as Unilever, L’Oréal, Adidas, Danone, Xiaomi, Coca-Cola, Krispy Kreme, Burger King and many more.
We are constantly improving the efficiency of our campaigns to enhance the returns on investment for our advertising clients, through better audience targeting, enhanced personalization and campaign management tools. As a result, advertising campaign performance, measured by the click-through rate on our ads, increased by 56% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2022, supporting sales and return on ad spend for our advertisers.
- IMPACT
Earlier in May 2022, we launched our inaugural ESG report highlighting our sustainability strategy and key themes in alignment with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (“UN SDGs”). The first edition of this report has been designed as an overview of our sustainability strategy with a mapping of our current sustainability practices.
Our sustainability strategy is fully aligned with our corporate mission and has three main objectives:
– Living our mission: Our mission to “leverage technology to improve everyday lives” holds sustainability at its core. As we execute on this mission, we create jobs, reduce inequality and positively impact our communities.
– Embedding sustainability in our business operations: We aim to make business decisions and conduct our operations with sustainability guidelines and objectives in mind.
– Amplifying our impact through our ecosystem: Our impact is further amplified as we expand our sustainability practices to our ecosystem of partners and stakeholders.
Our sustainability practices today can be grouped under five material themes outlined below. These themes have been developed in line with our understanding of how our business impacts our key stakeholder groups: consumers, partners, employees, investors and our communities.
Environment
- Minimizing environmental impact through the reduction of carbon emissions, waste and offering customers pre-owned and refurbished goods.
Social
Providing convenience, accessibility and affordability to consumers.
Empowering sellers, partners, and communities by lowering the barriers to entry, providing training, access to funding and participating in initiatives to drive economic and social development.
Building an engaged, inclusive, and diverse workforce.
Governance
- Operating with strong governance and ethical standards.
Federal government has disclosed that efforts are ongoing to link the National Social Register (NSR) to the National Identity Numbers (NIN).
Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, explained that the linked data would assist the country to anticipate crises, mobilize resources faster, and ensure aid reaches those who need it the most.
He said harnessing data would save the country and relevant stakeholders the stress and bottlenecks of outdated processes.
He also identified bureaucratic crisis as the biggest crisis in the humanitarian space which stalls responses to humanitarian issues.
Speaking in Abuja on Tuesday at the National Humanitarian Roundtable programme, the minister said: “People are traumatized by climate change, security threats and economic shock across the country and in the midst of these, we have limited funding.
“The biggest crisis we have is not just the people being killed, the crisis we have is a bureaucratic crisis that does not respond to a humanitarian crisis. Every delay in decision making, every inefficiency in coordination, every shortfall in funding, costs the life of people.
“They say knowledge is power, but knowledge can be destructive too. It can only be power if we use it effectively. By leveraging data and technology, we can anticipate crises; we can mobilize resources faster and ensure aid reaches those who are in need the most and without the bottleneck of outdated processes.
“We are linking the social register to national identity numbers and geotagging all homes of those who are vulnerable across the country so that if there’s any crisis, we don’t need to begin to walk around communities and taking names and asking the States Emergency Management Agency and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for data.
Kaspersky has recently contributed its threat intelligence data to an INTERPOL-led law enforcement action that aimed to disrupt cross-border criminal networks across the African region that cause significant harm to individuals and businesses.
With seven participating countries in Africa, operation Red Card resulted in the arrest of 306 individuals suspected of links to cybercrimes such as mobile banking, investment and messaging app scams, and seizure of 1,842 devices.
Conducted from November 2024 to February 2025, operation Red Card was delivered through INTERPOL’s African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC) and brought together law enforcers from Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo and Zambia.
The operation conduct was preceded by a threat intelligence data exchange, which was enriched by INTERPOL and its private sector partners, including Kaspersky. Kaspersky has shared with the law enforcement agency the results of an analysis of samples of a malicious Android application that targeted users in African countries along with the data on related infrastructure.
Altogether, the cybercriminal cases uncovered by the Red Card participants have preyed on more than 5,000 people. Among operation highlights were:
Nigeria: Nigerian police arrested 130 people, including 113 foreign nationals, for their alleged involvement in cyber-enabled scams such as online casino and investment fraud. The suspects, who converted proceeds to digital assets to conceal their tracks, were recruited from different countries to run the illegal schemes in as many languages as possible.
Zambia: Officers apprehended 14 suspected members of a criminal syndicate that hacked into victims’ phones. The scam involved sending a message containing a malicious link which, when clicked, installed malware on the device.
This allowed hackers to take control of the messaging account, and ultimately the phone, giving them access to banking apps. The hackers were also able to use the victim’s messaging apps to share the malicious link within conversations and groups, enabling the scam to spread.
Rwanda: Rwandan authorities arrested 45 members of a criminal network for their involvement in social engineering scams that defrauded victims of over USD 305,000 in 2024 alone.
Their tactics included posing as telecommunications employees and claiming fake ‘jackpot’ wins to extract sensitive information and gain access to victims’ mobile banking accounts. Another method involved impersonating an injured family member to ask relatives for financial assistance towards hospital bills.
South Africa: Local authorities arrested 40 individuals and seized more than 1,000 SIM cards, along with 53 desktops and towers linked to a sophisticated SIM box fraud scheme. This setup, which reroutes international calls as local ones, is commonly used by criminals to carry out large-scale SMS phishing attacks.
Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of the Cybercrime Directorate, said: “The success of Operation Red Card demonstrates the power of international cooperation in combating cybercrime, which knows no borders and can have devastating effects on individuals and communities.
“The recovery of significant assets and devices, as well as the arrest of key suspects, sends a strong message to cybercriminals that their activities will not go unpunished.”
“Kaspersky is proud to be part of this collaborative effort led by INTERPOL. The evolving threat landscape in Africa requires a multi-stakeholder dialogue and joint efforts of public and private organisations to address the cybersecurity challenges the region faces today.
The Red Card operation is a notable example of such cooperation, showcasing how the expertise of private companies coupled with extensive investigative capacities of law enforcers can foster a more cyber-resilient environment,” comments Yuliya Shlychkova, Vice President, Global Public Affairs, Kaspersky.
Kaspersky and INTERPOL have a vast record of joint operations aimed at combating cybercrime in the African region, with Kaspersky having supported two editions of INTERPOL’s Africa Cyber Surge operations.
Just recently, Kaspersky was also a contributor to INTERPOL’s joint action with AFRIPOL, which last year became the company’s official partner in fostering a more cybersafe climate across Africa. This partnership focuses on sharing Kaspersky’s extensive data on local cyberthreats and cybercrime trends in the region.
WhatsApp continues to be the best way for people and businesses to get business done in Nigeria. With its efficient features, the WhatsApp Business App has become an indispensable tool for small businesses, helping them streamline communication, enhance customer engagement and drive sales. And we know customers love communicating with businesses over WhatsApp too, as nearly 80% of people globally message with a business at least once a week.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimise your business operations, here are five essential WhatsApp Business features that can elevate your efficiency and customer interactions.
1. Catalog – Showcase Your Products and Services
Gone are the days of sending multiple images and descriptions individually to customers. With the Catalog feature, you can create a digital storefront where customers can browse your offerings within WhatsApp. This is just like a mini-website which makes it easier to showcase your products, prices and descriptions in an organised way.
How to Use It: Go to Business Tools > Catalog. Add product images, videos, names, descriptions and pricing.
2. Quick Replies – Save Time on Repetitive Questions
Answering the same customer questions repeatedly? Quick Replies let you create preset responses for frequently asked questions, saving you time and ensuring fast customer service.
How to Use It:Go to Settings > Business Tools > Quick Replies. Create and save responses such as a greeting message or order confirmation. Use the shortcut “/” to insert a quick reply in any chat
3. Labels – Stay Organised and Track Conversations
Managing multiple customer interactions can be overwhelming, but the Labels feature helps by categorising chats in different ways, such as order status or customer type. You can create labels with different colors or names and add the conversations to an entire chat. This keeps your inbox organised and ensures no customer is left waiting.
How to Use It: Open a chat, tap on the three-dot menu > Label Chat. Assign relevant labels like New Customer, Order Placed, Pending Payment.
4. Away Messages – Engage Customers Even When You’re Away
Never miss a customer inquiry again. Away Messages allow you to set up a greeting or away message, ensuring customers receive timely responses even outside business hours.
How to Use It: Go to Business Tools > Away Message / Greeting Message. Set up a custom message and schedule when it should be sent.
5. Meta Verified – For Enhanced Protection and Account Support
A paid subscription that helps your business build credibility with new audiences, Meta Verified can help drive more engagement and grow your brand. With Meta Verified, you’ll receive enhanced account support, can use WhatsApp across multiple devices and easily create a professional WhatsApp web page that’s tailored to you.
How to Use It: Go to Settings or Business Tools > tap Meta Verified.
WhatsApp Business is packed with features designed to help small businesses grow, stay organised, and engage with customers effortlessly. By leveraging these features, you can enhance your customer experience, increase efficiency and ultimately drive more sales. Start your own journey with the WhatsApp Business app here.
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