African e-commerce firm expands to new markets

Online retailer Jumia, a would-be African Amazon set up by German venture capital firm Rocket Internet, is expanding into Uganda, Ghana and Cameroon, the company said yesterday. Jumia, which launched in 2012, already operates in Nigeria, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Kenya, offering up to 100,000 different items for sale from its local warehouses.

The company has recently set up local offices in Uganda after initially launching a service there in February that relied on deliveries from Kenya. The Ghana and Cameroon sites are set to open within the coming weeks, a spokesman said. “We know we are early. We are coming to markets which are not as mature in terms of Internet penetration and Internet savviness but still there is a big appetite for this service,” Jumia co-founder Sacha Poignonnec told Reuters.