In addition to its core e-commerce business, Jumia also launched a food delivery service. This service did not live up to the expectations of the startup's management.

E-commerce giant Jumia will shutdown Jumia Food by the end of this month. The decision, communicated through a press release on Wednesday, December 13th, cites the current challenging economic conditions and macroeconomic environment in its African markets as the primary factor.

Jumia Food, operating in seven markets across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Côte d'Ivoire, struggled to find profitability in the competitive food delivery landscape. "Food delivery remains a business with very challenging economics, in Africa and across the world, and we want to focus our efforts on our physical goods e-commerce business, in the eleven markets where we operate. This is a matter of prioritization of opportunities, and expected return on investment," explained Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, Jumia’s executive vice-president (EVP) of finance and operations.

Prioritizing profitability, Jumia is streamlining its operations, focusing its capital and resources on its core e-commerce business across its eleven African markets. The company, founded in 2012 and Africa's first unicorn by 2016, has raised $1.2 billion to fuel its growth and remains publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

"The more we focus on our physical goods business, the more we realize that there is huge potential for Jumia to grow, with a path to profitability. We must take the right decision and fully focus our management, our teams, and our capital resources to go after this opportunity. In the current context, it means leaving a business line, which we believe does not offer the same upside potential - food delivery," says CEO Francis Dufay

Adoni Conrad Quenum