Jiji acquired OLX businesses in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to boost its presence in sub-Saharan Africa. OLX recently closed its African operations and centralized them in South Africa at the Naspers headquarters due to losses it faced.
Jiji believes that this transaction is pivotal for its business as it’s a long-term investor in Africa. They believe the continent will soon become a global leader in business and technology. This transaction will redirect OLX users in Nigeria and the four other countries to Jiji’s website. This deal is backed by Digital Spring Ventures, one of Jiji’s top investors.
“Users will always come first for us. We warmly welcome OLX’s customers to the Jiji family and we look forward to our new customers joining Jiji on its journey to empower the lives of its customers by providing a safer, more secure and enjoyable online shopping experience,” Anton Volyansky, CEO and Co-founder of Jiji.
“With this transaction, we plan to build the largest Africa-based classified business, creating a new experience for Africa’s fastest-developing countries and their combined population of 300 million. We firmly believe that in the next 2-3 years, ours will be one of the top 10 classifieds businesses in the world by traffic,” said Vladimir Mnogoletniy, Board Director and Co-founder of Jiji.
“This partnership is pivotal to Jiji’s future business model and success, as it paves the way for building the continent’s largest Africa-based classified business serving a market with a combined population of over 300 million in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. We continue to act as a long-term investor in Africa and are excited by the exceptional opportunities, this young and dynamic continent has to offer. In the next 2-3 years we aim to be one of the top 10 classifieds businesses in the world by traffic,” Vladimir added.
Jiji has over six million unique active users, and 50,000 professional sellers listing over one million items in a rapidly growing market of 200m people. OLX’s reach combined with Jiji’s own proprietary search and delivery algorithms, will create a more streamlined experience for consumers.
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Sjoerd Nikkelen, General Manager of OLX in Africa, Middle East and Asia also agreed it was time for them to move out of Africa to focus on other markets such as Asia, India and recently Europe after Naspers launched a startup fund.
“We are proud of our achievements in Africa, and the sustainable businesses we have built in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. We continually evaluate our portfolio of classifieds businesses to ensure a disciplined approach to how and where we allocate capital and management time. With our focus on accelerating the growth of other markets, now is a great time to sell our interests in these markets. We are pleased that Jiji will continue to provide the exceptional quality of products and services that the customers in these countries have come to know and enjoy from OLX,” he said.
The contract is pending certain regulatory approvals. When approved, all users of the e-commerce websites of OLX Nigeria, OLX Ghana, OLX Kenya, OLX Tanzania, and OLX Uganda will be redirected to Jiji. The Jiji team will strive to make the transfer seamless, and to provide a high-quality user experience across all geographies.