Africa’s $1bn unicorn Jumia does an Amazon in New York

LONDON — An e-commerce business has proven that Africa is not only the continent of the Big Five animals, elephants, lions, buffaloes, leopards and rhinos, it is also a continent that can grow unicorns, the $1bn kind. There are now three unicorns in Africa, South Africa's Promasidor Holdings, Cell C and Jumia in Nigeria, which is regarded as the African Amazon. Jumia listed on the New York Stock Exchange at an initial opening price of $18.90 on 12 April and has doubled in value in the first five days of trading. This is good news for the largest shareholder in Jumia, MTN. Jumia co-CEO and co-founder Sacha Poignonnec explained to Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Jason Kelly the vision they have for the company… – Linda van Tilburg

In America there's Amazon and in China there's Alibaba. In Latin America there's MercadoLibre, and in Africa there's Jumia. We offer the similar services, as you guys know them very well and consumers use Jumia to access services and goods. They can buy a lot of products but also book hotels, order food online and all sorts of services and we operate at the marketplace – we help sellers contribute their products and services through Jumia.

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