29 November 2019: After Jumia bummed out at the NYSE, after Citron Research hammered the company, and called Jumia a “fraud”; Jumia is now taking another hit. It is retracting itself from two African countries - Cameroon and Tanzania, to “focus” on other stronger markets, where they can bring value and where the company can flourish.

Africa’s largest e-commerce platform continues to incur massive losses, but are still holding on to hope, courtesy- JumiaPay ( the company’s payment and fintech business), which their executives believe will show them the light of day. According to them “We are making significant progress in the usage and relevance of our platform for consumers and sellers and are firmly positioning Jumia as the digital destination of choice for everyday needs in Africa,”

They released a statement declaring their exit form Tanzania: “As part of our ongoing portfolio optimisation effort, Jumia has come to the difficult decision to cease our operations in Tanzania effective on November 27,”

While a couple of Weeks ago, Sacha Poignonnec, CEO at Jumia, had commented on the Cameroon exit “We came to the conclusion that our transactional portal as it is run today is not suitable to the current context in Cameroon,” Poignonnec said.

Now Jumia is down to serving 12 countries in Africa. 

How much loss are we talking about?

Jumia’s has incurred a loss of $456.3 million in 2017 and $187.8 million in 2018. While during its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the company incurred losses of $949.8 million as of December 2018.

Last week, it posted its Q3 earrings showing a loss of $55 million.

Reporting for EasyKobo on Friday , 29 November 2019 in Lagos, Nigeria