By Adedapo Adesanya
Jumia Technologies recorded a 21 per cent growth in its Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), which shows the total sales monetary value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame, in the second quarter of the year as the metric jumped to $271.1 million compared to $223.5 in the same period last year.
This was announced today in its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022.
Revenue also grew 42.5 per cent to $57.3 million from $40.2 million while it raked in a gross profit of $30.4 million from $26.8 million, a 13.6 per cent growth by comparison.
This is as Orders and Quarterly Active Consumers also grew by 35 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. In the period under review, Jumia across the board settled 10.3 million orders against 7.6 million, while its customer base in the three months grew from 2.7 million last year to 3.4 million.
Commenting on the results, Mr Jeremy Hodara and Mr Sacha Poignonnec, co-Chief Executive Officers of Jumia said, “We remain focused on scaling the business towards profitability. In the second quarter of 2022, we have successfully delivered on each building block of our path to profitability: usage growth momentum, monetization acceleration and cost discipline.
“Despite a deteriorating macro environment, we maintained a strong pace of usage growth. Orders, Quarterly Active Consumers, and GMV grew by 35 per cent, 25 per cent, and 21 per cent respectively, on a year-over-year basis.
“Leveraging robust usage growth, we further accelerated monetization. Gross Profit and Marketplace revenue were up 14 per cent and 17 per cent year-over-year respectively, the fastest growth rates of the past 5 quarters.”
In the context of rising inflation and input cost pressure, Jumia announced that cost discipline remained a top priority, adding that it drove usage growth and monetization acceleration with lower-than-expected marketing investments with Sales and Advertising expenses of $41.0 million in the first half of 2022 compared to our guidance of $50-55 million.
“We believe we are now past the peak of quarterly Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) losses reached in the fourth quarter of 2021 and intend to redouble our efforts to reach profitability, leveraging our strong business fundamentals.
“We intend to reduce Adjusted EBITDA losses starting from the second half of 2022 with a 12 per cent to 29 per cent decrease year-over-year.”
“We are confident our consistent and disciplined execution will help us reach profitability and build an even stronger and more relevant platform,” the company noted.
Speaking on its impact initiatives, Jumia noted that in Nigeria, it partnered with Errand360 to offer eco-friendly, bicycle-powered meal deliveries to our customers.
“This partnership will help us reduce our carbon emissions and delivery costs thanks to lower maintenance costs and zero spend on fuel,” it said.
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