We are studying Jumia and this is our prediction: Jumia will emerge as one of Africa’s most dynamic aggregators of digital commerce. Recently, Jumia is not building but rather partnering and aggregating others. That is a potent business model: Aggregation Construct. Max is handling packages in West Africa, So Fresh is dealing with the food domain, and so on across market domains.
In coming months, Jumia will add music, video and broad entertainment through aggregation. We are examining this company and Jumia has no plans to put huge CAPEX but rather orchestrate partnerships on its near 4.5 million users in Africa. Being public brings discipline; Jumia is a public company traded in U.S.
Jumia Prime will not have any value without those elements. And to make it useful, Jumia will aggregate many things around it: “Jumia launches Jumia Prime, mimicking Amazon Prime, on a brilliant double play strategy where it promises to offer free shipping to customers, in Lagos and Abuja, who pay subscriptions to use Jumia.”
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Jumia Music, Jumia Video, Jumia Readers, etc are coming. Yes, I expect Jumia to bundle subscriptions of some important publications for its Prime members. Expect FT and HBR there. Jumia Video could be a potent competitor to iRokotv than Netflix or DStv in Nigeria as Jumia Prime will make price lower.
This company is evolving in many ways.
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Jumia’s evolution is palpable, in the past its art of making losses was legendary, but going forward, it’s set to expand without necessarily spending big, because it has managed to somehow figure out a construct that works.
Being public brings many elements, aside from being more disciplined, your speed and quality of thinking appears to be better.
We will see how long it takes for all the stars to align for Jumia.
If the new model works, more startups will copy. I will like to see more profitable companies over loss-making entities.