There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although Amazon.com...

German tech investor Rocket Internet said on Thursday it had sold its stake in African ecommerce company Jumia, which has seen its shares steadily fall since they listed last April on Wall Street. Rocket Internet, which had held an 11% stake in Jumia as of Nov. 8, sold its holding between then and the onset of the coronavirus crisis, Bettina Curtze, the firm's head of finance and investments, told journalists, declining to be more precise. Curtze declined to reveal what proceeds Rocket Internet made from the sale, but said they were included in the 2.1 billion euros ($2.30 billion) of net cash the company had as of March 31.

Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE:JMIA), ("Jumia"), today announced that it will release its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 before the U.S. market opens on Wednesday, May 13, 2020.

(Bloomberg) -- In the three years since becoming an agent for mobile e-commerce company Copia Global Inc., Samuel Kihara has boosted revenue at his general store fivefold, opened a second shop, bought land and a truck and moved his children to private school.“The commissions I earn as a Copia agent have been my working capital,” Kihara, 48, said as he stood in green overalls at his small shop in Kawaida, a village 23 kilometers north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “All this has been possible due to money from the business.”Copia takes mobile-phone orders for goods ranging from kitchen appliances to tinned food and delivers them to remote parts of Kenya within about two days at no extra cost. That’s when Kihara and about 6,000 other agents in the country come in. They own businesses such as a shop or hairdresser that Copia can use as a central delivery point -- and earn a commission on every order.Copia’s slogan, Maisha Rahisi, means ‘simple life’ in Swahili. The company, founded in 2013 by American social entrepreneurs Tracey Turner and Jonathan Lewis, is still making a loss. But its sales are growing at a rate of 15% a month in Kenya, a country whose citizens have been quick to take up mobile e-commerce services ranging from money transfers to digital-loans.“The model solves a number of issues in terms of merchandising that exist in rural areas on the continent,” said Future Advisory founder Herman Singh, a former executive at wireless giant MTN Group Ltd. and one-time board member of Africa’s biggest e-commerce business, Jumia Technologies AG. “The challenge is doing this at a profit. The models don’t compute unless you have huge scale on your side.”750 MillionWhile Copia currently serves just over a fifth of Kenya’s rural population, mostly in the center of the country, Tim Steel, its chief executive officer, has bigger ambitions. His target market is Africa’s 750-million middle and low income consumers, who spend $680 billion a year.Within 18 months Steel expects to have 18,000 agents, he said, and to have begun expanding into Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. He expects the company to turn a profit within two years, though he declined to give financial details.“We are able to deliver a package at one-sixth of the price than any other best in class e-commerce business in the world,” Steel said. We aggregate “multiple orders, rather than having a one-on-one delivery system that prices a lot of customers out.”That may give Copia an advantage over rival Africa-focused online retailers such as Jumia, which has been dubbed the continent’s version of Amazon. Founded by two Frenchmen in 2012, Jumia listed in the U.S. last year to great fanfare but is also yet to turn a profit, and the stock has slumped 71% since the initial public offering. It operates in 11 African countries from Morocco to Nigeria and Kenya.Malaicha.com, which allows groceries purchased in South Africa to be collected in Zimbabwe at a small number of collection points, operates a similar system to Copia, albeit on a much smaller scale.“The biggest problem of Africa is always the logistics,” said Christophe Meunier, a partner at telecommunications advisory firm Delta Partners. “It is likely to take time and financial resources to be able to build those routes that are under-served and not well established at scale.”Copia will need to access more finance if it is to proceed with its plans and is hopeful it can raise funding in the early part of 2021, though it isn’t yet considering a listing.“We will need further investment,” Steel said.Royal HelpCopia raised $26 million last year in a funding round led by LGT Lightstone, an impact investment company owned by Liechtenstein’s royal family. The company is currently owned by between 30 and 40 investors including LGT and DOB Equity, a fund based in the Netherlands, said Steel.“It is providing middle and low-income African consumers with access to quality goods at low prices,” LGT said in a response to questions. “Copia is leap-frogging retail.”So far it has been well received by Kenyan customers.“The savings are great, we are happy,” said John Kamau, a 55-year-old who drives a motorized rickshaw taxi in Githurai 45, on the outskirts of Nairobi. He uses Copia to send his mother feed for her dairy cows 140 kilometers away, saving her a journey of as much as six hours to the closest outlet. “She is happy.”(Adds location of Copia’s current operations in sixth paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net;Loni Prinsloo in Johannesburg at lprinsloo3@bloomberg.net;David Herbling in Nairobi at dherbling@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: John McCorry at jmccorry@bloomberg.net, John Bowker, Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Jumia (NYSE:JMIA), the leading e-commerce platform in Africa has today announced a major partnership with Reckitt Benckiser, the global health products manufacturer to help consumers access hygienic products at the lowest price.

Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia is adapting its digital retail network to curb the spread of COVID-19. The Nigeria headquartered operation — with online goods and services verticals in 11 African countries — announced a series of measures on Friday. Jumia will donate certified face masks to health ministries in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria and Uganda, drawing on its supply networks outside Africa.

There's been a major selloff in Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE:JMIA) shares in the week since it released its yearly...

Jumia reports First Quarter 2020 results

Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia and B2B agtech startup Twiga Foods are partnering to deliver produce in Kenya using adaptive measures during COVID-19. Jumia offers online goods and services verticals in 11 countries and became the first VC funded tech company in Africa to list on a major exchange, the NYSE. Based in Nairobi, Twiga raised a $30 million Series B round in October and announced plans to expand its food supply-chain business to West Africa.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 25, 2020 / Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE:JMIA) will be discussing their earnings results in their 2019 Fourth Quarter Earnings call to be held on February 25, 2020 at ...

Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia got into the black (by a small amount) on its gross profit vs. fulfillment expenses, expanded financial services and still posted losses. The online sales company, with an operations center in China, also anticipates some negative impact on 2020 growth from the coronavirus outbreak, CEO Sacha Poigonnec said. Jumia — with online goods and services verticals in 11 countries — posted 2019 revenues of €160 million, representing growth of 24% over 2018.

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. 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.

A year ago this week, Jumia, the largest e-commerce operator across Africa, entered uncharted territory: it became the first major African-focused tech company to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Jumia’s listing was rightly heralded as a major milestone for Africa’s fledgling tech ecosystems and for a company which had expanded to 14 African countries with businesses across several verticals since it was first founded in Nigeria in 2012. Ahead of its listing, investors with a track record of backing e-commerce ventures in emerging markets predicted that the novelty of an Africa-focused tech company listing on NYSE would initially prove a draw, especially among retail investors.

With us today are Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Jumia; as well as Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, CFO. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements expressed today, please see the Risk Factors section of our [Indecipherable] filing.

The Africa-focused e-commerce stock is still down roughly 42.6% in 2020 despite a big rally last month.

Jumia provides a Letter to Shareholders from the co-Founders

Africa’s leading e-commerce platform, Jumia, has announced a number of actions to support the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

All three companies have coronavirus-resistant business models and are set to outperform the market over the long term.

Africa’s leading e-Commerce platform, Jumia, has offered the support of its integrated ecosystem which includes a marketplace, logistics and online payments to governments in Africa, as part of the global action against COVID-19.

Investors need to pay close attention to Jumia Technologies (JMIA) stock based on the movements in the options market lately.