Jumia is aggressively cutting costs to try to turn profitable, including by reducing head count, exiting everyday grocery items and food delivery and cutting delivery services not related to its e-commerce business.
The trajectory of the countries did not align with the strategy of the group, CEO Francis Dufay said, citing complex macroeconomics, the competitive environment and low medium term potential for growth and profitability.
We believe its the right decision, he added. It enables us to refocus our resources on the other nine markets, where we see more promising trends in terms of scale and profitability.
Jumias remaining markets include Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. Dufay said success in any would easily enable us to recover lost volumes from South Africa and Tunisia.
These two businesses accounted for only 2.7 of total orders and 3 of gross merchandise value in the six months ended 30 June 2024, Dufay said.
