We now have official confirmation from Sjoerd Nikkelen, CEO of OLX in Asia, Middle East, and Africa that OLX has indeed shut down physical operations in Nigeria. He, however, made no mention of Kenya or Ghana.
He said:
We made a difficult but important decision in Nigeria to consolidate our operations between some of our offices internationally.
Our marketplace will continue to operate here — uninterrupted — as it has since 2010, and we remain committed to the many people here who use our platform to buy and sell every month. We continue to be focused on constantly innovating to make sure that OLX remains the top classifieds platform in the country.
Of course, we are committed to helping our affected colleagues during this transition and have already offered them meaningful financial and other support. As we’ve expressed to them directly, we are extremely grateful for their many significant contributions to OLX’s success.
Multinational media group and investor Naspers has allegedly shut down all OLX offices in Africa except the one in South Africa. Operations in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya are going to be affected by this announcement.
OLX is a global classifieds platform, with physical presence in nearly 40 countries.
According to a report on Innovation Village, staff in these offices have been informed today and are expected to fully move out by the end of March 2018. The same report says OLX will still be present in these countries but will be run remotely and at press time, the Nigerian and Kenyan websites of OLX are still up and running.
Naspers are investors in MultiChoice — operators of the DStv and GOtv satellite televisions — and the recently acquired Konga.
This move is a possible indicator that Naspers is slowly moving its investments away from Africa.
OLX, which launched in Nigeria in 2012, said it had more than three million sellers and buyers registered on its platform in 2015 and reported that items valued at N12.1tn were posted for sale on its website in 2016.
OLX is a classified ad platform that connects people in local communities to buy, sell or exchange used goods and services through their mobile phone or on the web.
OLX operates in 45 countries and has an average of 54 million monthly listings of items for sale on its website.
The e-commerce business is experiencing divestment in Nigeria. Efritin.com closed down in 2015, citing the high cost of doing business as reasons for the exit from Nigeria. Konga.com, in which Naspers is a major investor, also sold its business to Zinox Group last week.
