Friday, May 10, 2019 07:35:00 PM (GMT)

Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE: JMIA), (“Jumia”), today announced that it will release its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019 before the U.S. market opens on Monday, May 13, 2019. This announcement supersedesa press release issued on May 7, 2019.Management will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. US Eastern Time on May 13, 2019.

Jumia Technologies Posts Higher First-Quarter Revenue

May 13, 2019

Africa-focused transaction and payment e-commerce and services company Jumia Technologies (JMIA) on Monday said first-quarter revenue rose from a year earlier on solid results from its recent partnership with Mastercard (MA - Get Report) .

The Lagos, Nigeria-based "Amazon of Africa" posted negative adjusted Ebitda of €39.5 million vs. negative adjusted Ebitda of €30.2 million a year earlier. The company did not provide per-share earnings results. Revenue came in at €31.8 million vs. €28.3 million.

Development of JumiaPay, highlighted by Mastercard's recent investment and partnership, helped drive the results, co-CEOs Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara said in a statement, adding that they are continuing to push on "increasing the penetration of JumiaPay, while continuing to improve our financial profile and making a sustainable impact on the continent."

Mastercard earlier this year invested €50 million in Jumia in a concurrent private placement with its initial public offering.

The company had 4.3 million active users as of March 31, up from 3 million a year ago. "We believe that a major driver of our active consumer growth is the continued expansion of our product offering and the growing relevance of our platform, which drives consumer adoption and engagement," the company said.

American depositary receipts of Jumia were down 6.9% at $22.80 in premarket trading on Monday. They ended the day Friday down nearly 9% at $24.50. Shares of Mastercard were down 1.43% at $243.89 in premarket trading on Monday.

Jumia's stock drops after losses widen, revenue rises less than expected

May 13, 2019

Shares of Jumia Technologies AG dropped 7.3% in premarket trade Monday, after the Africa-based e-commerce company reported its first results as a public company, with losses widening from a year ago and revenue rising less than expected.

The net loss for the first quarter to March 31 was 45.4 million euro ($51.0 million), after a loss of EUR34.2 million a year ago. The company did not provide per-share figures. Revenue rose 12% to EUR31.8 million, below the FactSet consensus of EUR34.7 million. GMV grew 58%, while marketplace revenue rose 102% and operating loss as a percentage of GMV improved by 3.56 percentage points.

Jumia ‘stands by’ prospectus after Citron’s Andrew Left slams company as a ‘fraud’ and ‘worthless’’

May 13, 2019

Jumia Technologies AG’s co-Chief Executive Sacha Poignonnec reaffirmed the information in the African e-commerce company’s prospectus after Citron Research’s Andrew Left, a noted short seller, alleged in a report Thursday that it has the “smoking gun” that shows why Jumia equity is “worthless.”

“We completely stand by our prospectus,” he said on the earnings call for the e-commerce company’s first results as a public company. “We will not be distracted... by those who seek to create doubt to profit at our expense and that of our long-term stakeholders.”

In a post-earnings call conversation with MarketWatch, Poignonnec highlighted both the digital growth potential on the African continent and the first-quarter results. Losses widened year-over-year, though revenue grew 12% to EUR31.8 million, below the FactSet consensus of EUR34.7 million. Gross merchandise volume (GMV) was up 58%, a figure that Poignonnec says is important because it’s where the company generates its revenue. The company is heavily dependent on third-party sellers.

We are engaged into a very well balanced strategy... that isn’t just about growth,” he said. “Ultimately we are addressing such a huge market. The reality is that we have huge potential ahead of us.”

Citron highlighted what it calls “material discrepancies” between the confidential investor presentation from October 2018 and what the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The differences include: inflating active customer and active merchant numbers by 20% to 30%; and that 41% of orders were returned, not delivered or canceled.

“In 18 years of publishing, Citron has never seen such an obvious fraud as Jumia,” the report said.

Poignonnec said the report is “a collection of very selective and biased facts” designed to damage the company.

Among the risk factors highlighted in the IPO prospectus was the fact that many deliveries failed. Jumia said that 14.4% of GMV in 2018 either failed to deliver or was returned.

“Assuming 41% of orders were returned, not delivered, or canceled in 2018, this implies that almost 30% of orders were canceled in 2018,” Citron wrote. “Since Jumia primarily sells consumer electronics, which should not have this high of a cancellation rate, it wreaks of fraud.”

Research analysts initiated coverage of Jumia stock last week with bullish assessments of the company’s future. Many cited the growth potential for Jumia as the African continent currently has less than 1% e-commerce penetration.

Moreover, Jumia has created payments and logistical platforms designed to grow digital transactions across the continent, which is still very reliant on cash transactions.

“We believe this deep local knowledge and [these] payments and logistics systems provide Jumia with competitive advantages versus potential new market entrants,” said Raymond James, which rated Raymond James stock market perform.

Short-Target Jumia Bucks Market Slide as Stifel Gets Bullish

May 13, 2019

Jumia Technologies AG reversed an initial drop of as much as 18% as first-quarter results paired with a recent pullback in prices helped win over its first sell-side bull.

``The leader in the most attractive markets in Africa, is well-positioned to benefit from the positive secular trends in Commerce and digital payments growth over the long term,'' Stifel's Scott Devitt wrote in the note, becoming the first analyst to have a buy-equivalent on the stock.

The Berlin-based company's increased loss in the first three months of the year came in its first results since going public, and less than a week after Citron Research attacked it as a short target. Those comments wiped off more than a quarter of the company’s market value in the three trading sessions prior to Monday’s market open.

“We will not be distracted from executing on our strategy and carrying out our mission by those who seek to create doubts to profit at our expense and that of our long-term stakeholders,” the company’s co-chief executive officer Sacha Poignonnec said on the call with analysts.

While company management defended its platform and referred to the results as “excellent,” Stifel was the first Wall Street analyst to echo the positive sentiment.

The company that has been dubbed the Amazon.com Inc. of Africa reported first-quarter revenue of 31.8 million euros compared to 28.3 million euros the year prior. Jumia remains up more than 75% from an April public offering, despite shedding close to half of its market value during im the last eight sessions.
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• First-quarter operating loss widened to 45.5m euros from a loss of 34.3m euros a year earlier
• 1Q rev. 31.8m euros vs 28.3m euros y/y
• 1Q first party rev. 15.6m euros vs 19.8m euros y/y

Pan-African e-tailer Jumia grows 3Q revenue, e-payments, and losses

November 12, 2019

Jumia — with online goods and service verticals in 14 countries — posted third-quarter revenue growth of 19% (€40 million) and increased its active customer base 56% to 5.5 million from 3.5 million over the same period a year ago.

Jumia’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) — the total amount of goods sold over the period — grew by 39% to €275 million. The online retailer nearly doubled its orders from 3.6 million in Q3 2018 to 7 million in Q3 2019.

Jumia also saw growth in its JumiaPay digital finance product, with total payment volume growing 95% to €32 million in Q3 2019 from €16.4 million in Q3 2018.

This is significant, as the company has committed to generate more revenues from digital payment products and offer JumiaPay as a standalone service across Africa.

The overall pattern of growing revenues and customers YoY has been consistent for Jumia.

But so too have the company’s losses, which widened 34% in 3Q 2019 to €54.6 million, compared to €40.6 million. Negative EBITDA increased 26% to €45.4 million from €35.8 over the same period in 2018.

Jumia pegged a large part of the spike in losses to an increase in fulfillment expenses due to more cross-border goods transactions (with higher shipping costs) on its platform in 3Q 2019.



What’s new

Jumia introduced some new methodologies and measures for its results. “We believe the most relevant monetization metrics for us are market-based revenue and gross profit,” Jumia Group CFO Antoine Maillet-Mezerey explained on the call.

“We don’t see revenue as a meaningful metric to assess the monetization of our business as it is impacted by shifts in the revenue mix between first party and marketplace,” he said.

If and when Jumia does get into the black, I suspect revenue will shift back as key.

On its path to profitability, Jumia CEO Sacha Poignonnec reaffirmed the company’s commitment to generate more revenue from higher margin (straight through) products, such as JumiaPay and Jumia’s classified business, over cost intensive (and logistically complicated) online goods sales.

“We are focused on driving the adoption and penetration of Jumia pay within our own ecosystem,” he said — meaning across Jumia’s existing buyer-seller universe.

Since its founding in 2012, the company has been forced to adapt to slower digital payments integration in its core Nigeria and allow cash-on-delivery payments, which are costly and more problematic than digital processing.

Poignonnec highlighted Jumia’s commitment to build a financial services marketplace (and revenues) from consumers and partners using JumiaPay and JumiaLending for products such as loans, third-party credit-scoring and insurance, he explained. This has led to Jumia moving into working-capital services for vendors on its platform.

On the movement of online goods, Jumia highlighted the expansion of its JumiaMall service, which offers brands — such as L’Oreal, Samsung, and Unliver — more tailored selling options on its website around shipping, product positioning and consumer data-analytics.

Jumia also shared info on product mix and diversification, which showed strong upward trends in digital services, the sale of consumer electronics, and beauty products.

Share-price

Surprisingly absent from Jumia’s earnings call and the subsequent Q&A was any discussion of the company’s share-price.

Today’s reporting was slightly more anticipated, given Jumia has faced a short-seller assault, sales-scandal and significant market-cap drop since its April IPO on the NYSE.


. . . .

Jumia can offer new metrics to evaluate its performance, but the simplest measure — the ability to generate revenues in excess of costs to turn a profit — will still apply.

The sooner Jumia can go in that direction the faster it can revive its share-price and investor confidence.

African e-commerce giant Jumia cuts costs, hopes for lockdown boost

May 13, 2020

LAGOS (Reuters) - Struggling e-commerce platform Jumia Technologies reported an almost 7 percent fall in first quarter revenue due to supply chain disruptions, particularly in China, but saw lower cash burn and signs that lockdowns were hastening a shift towards online shopping in Africa.

Jumia was the first Africa-focused tech start-up to go public on the New York Stock Exchange and reached a market capitalisation of over $1.5 billion just days after it listed last April.

But the company has struggled to find its way, and its share price has tumbled some 90% from its peak a year ago. On Wednesday, its shares traded down around 24% from the previous close, at $3.98 at 1159 EST.

The results, which caught the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak on the African continent, showed the lowest losses in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in six quarters, at 35.6 million euros.

But revenue fell to 29.3 million euros. China is a a key supplier of electronics and mobile phones sold on the platform.

Still, during an earnings call on Wednesday, founders Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara said they saw opportunities amid the pandemic.

“We are seeing unprecedented demand to join the Jumia platform, especially for named brands,” Poignonnec said. “We believe those dynamics will help accelerate the shift towards online.”

The company has recently unveiled deals with major brands including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Nestle, Carrefour in Algeria and grocery provider Twiga in Kenya.

The company is hoping virus containment measures as lockdowns ease will increase the allure of its business model, bypassing crowded shops and offering cashless payment.

Though it presented data showing a drop in items sold amid lockdowns in key markets including Nigeria and South Africa in March and into April, the company said figures in both markets had begun rebounding by the end of April.

In South Africa, a strict lockdown barred delivery of fashion items for several weeks, while in Nigeria, measures made it impossible for some vendors to access their inventory.

Revenue in Morocco and Tunisia increased by contrast, and sales were slightly higher on a group level by mid-April.

The figures also showed 28% orders growth, 77% year-on-year growth in transactions using its JumiaPay payment platform and gross profit per order climbing to 40 cents, up from breakeven a year ago.