in 2019 in a New York listing where it was was hailed as the Amazon of Africa. Since then, it’s been struggling with persistent losses and its shares have dropped 68%. The shares were down 1.1% as of 10:30 a.m. on Monday in New York.
Still, Dufay said that the company’s more than 10 years of experience operating in Africa give it an advantage over new competitors. For example, Jumia has built a logistics business from scratch to deal with the lack of formal addresses and city mapping in many of the areas where it makes deliveries.
He said he’ll double down on Jumia’s “bread-and-butter” e-commerce categories, including fashion, beauty, consumer electronics and appliances. The company will also pause the logistics services it offers third parties in its operating countries except for Morocco, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, he said.