Africa-focused online marketplace Jumia Technologies highlighted signs of continued growth in the first quarter of 2022, driven by the expansion of its logistics service and the growth of JumiaPay transactions, among other things.
“We kicked off 2022 with very strong growth momentum, closing the first quarter with the highest GMV [general merchandise volume] and order growth rates of the past 9 quarters, up 27% and 40% year-over-year respectively,” Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, co-CEOs of Jumia, noted in the report released on Tuesday (May 17).
They added: “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.”
Read more: Jumia: How The ‘Amazon Of Africa’ Is Navigating A Pandemic-Induced Explosion In Digital Payments
In terms of headline numbers, quarterly active consumers grew 29% to reach 3.1 million and orders jumped 40% year over year (YoY) to reach 9.3 million in Q1 2022, the fastest growth rate of the past nine quarters.
This was largely driven by a significant 180% YoY increase in the total sales value of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), the fastest-growing category in terms of items sold on the platform.
The category, which saw close to one million stock-keeping unit (SKUs) added in the first three months of the year, accounted for 15% of items sold in Q1 2022, representing the second-largest category in terms of items sold after fashion and beauty products.
In an interview with PYMNTS last November, the company’s Executive Vice President of Financial Services, Sami Louali, said that due to the rapid growth of FMCG experienced in recent years, Jumia had plans to build out its logistics operations to meet the needs of buyers who want groceries delivered the same day.
Read Louali’s interview: Jumia On Africa’s Great eCommerce Shift — Toward ‘Everyday Items’
It seems the Lagos-based company is making good on that promise, recording significant progress on the rollout of its logistics services to third parties in the Q1 report as packages shipped by 1,250-plus clients during the quarter hit a new record of 3.5 million.
Navigating Intense Competition
In other news, the company’s payments unit JumiaPay was granted a Payment Service Solution Provider (PSSP) license by the Central Bank of Nigeria last month, enabling it to process payments on behalf of third-party businesses in its core market of Nigeria.
See also: Jumia’s Payments Unit Now One-Third Of Marketplace Revenue
This comes as the firm is piloting an eDoctor service on the JumiaPay app in partnership with a third-party service provider, Meeting Doctors, that will give consumers, sellers and workers remote access to doctors for a monthly subscription fee of around $1.
Learn more: Consumers to Get JumiaPay Wallet as App Transactions Reach 36% of Total Orders in Q3
Previously, PYMNTS reported that the pan-African eCommerce platform expanded the range of digital and financial services available to consumers. In Nigeria, customers now have the opportunity to book bus tickets via the JumiaPay app, while new billers such as universities have been added to the platform to allow students to pay their tuition fees online.
“In the future, we intend to turn the JumiaPay checkout account into a full-fledged wallet with an extended range of [functions], including cash-in, cash out features […] and more,” Hodara previously said about the feature, which currently allows consumers to link a variety of payment methods, including any corporate card, account or wallet.
However, in its 2021 annual report released last month, the firm acknowledged the intense competition JumiaPay faces in each of the markets from debit, credit and prepaid card service providers, as well as from other offline payment options. In Q1 2022, for example, only 34% of total orders on the Jumia platform were completed using JumiaPay.
“We expect competition to intensify in the future as existing and new competitors may introduce new services or enhance existing services, [and] if we fail to compete effectively, we may lose existing sellers or consumers and fail to attract new sellers or consumers,” the company said at the time.
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