Lagos, May 11, 2021 – Jumia Technologies AG (Jumia) announced today its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021.
Results highlights for the first quarter of 2021
- Gross profit increased by 11% year-over-year
- Gross Profit after Fulfillment expense was up 149% year-over-year
- Adjusted EBITDA loss decreased by 24% year-over-year
Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, Co-Chief Executive Officers of Jumia commented,
“Our first-quarter results reflect solid progress towards profitability. The drivers remain consistent: selective and disciplined usage growth, gradual monetization and continued cost discipline. The first quarter of 2021 was the sixth consecutive quarter of positive gross profit after fulfilment expense, which reached €6.2 million, more than doubling year-over-year, while Adjusted EBITDA loss contracted by 24% year-over-year, reaching €27.0 million”
“Our strategy to increase our exposure to everyday product categories continues to yield positive results, enhancing the relevance of our marketplace for consumers. We are making further inroads in payment and fintech with 37% of Orders in the first quarter of 2021 completed using JumiaPay.
Last but not least, we have raised over $570 million over the past six months, strengthening our balance sheet and increasing our strategic flexibility. We are confident we have all the right ingredients to continue to build a growing business across both our e-commerce and fintech activities.”
SELECTED OPERATIONAL KPIs – Marketplace KPIs
- Annual Active Consumers reached 6.9 million in the first quarter of 2021, up 7% year-over-year, as we continued to acquire new consumers and engage existing ones.
- Orders reached 6.6 million, up 3% year-over-year, a reversal of the declining trend observed over the prior 2 quarters. The fastest-growing categories in terms of volumes continue to be the everyday product categories such as beauty, food delivery and fashion while we continued to see volume declines in electronics albeit with a modest recovery observed in the phone category.
- GMV was €165.0 million, down 13% on a year-over-year basis and 5% on a constant currency basis. Key drivers of GMV performance this quarter included:
- FX headwinds as a result of local currency depreciation against the Euro over the past year, with the Nigerian Naira, Egyptian Pound and Kenyan Shilling declining by 15%, 9% and 19% respectively against the Euro in the first quarter of 2021, year-over-year. On a constant currency basis, GMV was down 5% on a year-over-year basis.
- Continued GMV mix shift towards lower ticket-size, every-day product categories with phones and electronics accounting for 37% of GMV compared to 45% in the first quarter of 2020, driving a decline in average order value of 16% from €29.5 in the first quarter of 2020 to €24.9 in the first quarter 2021. This is consistent with the business mix rebalancing strategy initiated in 2020 as part of which we sought to increase our focus on everyday product categories to drive consumer adoption and usage while reducing our reliance on phones and electronics.
- The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continued playing out in the first quarter of 2021 with selected countries reinstating some movement restrictions such as Morocco tightening their curfews measures or Kenya imposing localized lockdowns late March. These measures did not lead to meaningful changes in consumer behavior but instead created supply and logistics disruption, especially for our food delivery business where dinner deliveries were affected by curfews in these countries.
The development of the pandemic remains a fluid situation and we expect it to drive continued operating environment uncertainty. We also expect the economic challenges induced by the pandemic to negatively impact consumer sentiment and spending power.
JumiaPay KPIs
- Total Payment Volume (TPV) increased by 21% from €35.5 million in the first quarter of 2020 to €42.9 million in the first quarter of 2021. On a constant currency basis, TPV increased by 35% year-over-year. On-platform penetration of JumiaPay as a percentage of GMV increased to 26.0% in the first quarter of 2021 from 18.7% in the first quarter of 2020.
- JumiaPay Transactions increased by 7% from 2.3 million in the first quarter of 2020 to 2.4 million in the first quarter of 2021, with JumiaPay Transactions above €10, which include prepaid purchases on the Jumia physical goods marketplace and Jumia Food platforms, growing by 30% over the same period. JumiaPay Transactions below €10 which mostly consist of transactions on the JumiaPay app, declined by 3% over this period. This trend was concentrated in the airtime recharge category as a result of reduced consumer incentives within this category which has historically been promotionally intensive.
Overall, 36.7% of Orders placed on the Jumia platform in the first quarter of 2021 were completed using JumiaPay, compared to 35.5% in the first quarter of 2020.
SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION
Revenue
- First Party revenue decreased by 35% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the first quarter of 2020. This was in line with our strategy to undertake fewer sales on a first-party basis as we focus on running an asset-light marketplace model where third-party sellers offer consumers an expanding range of products and services. Shifts in the mix between first-party and marketplace activities trigger substantial variations in our Revenue as we record the full sales price net of returns as First Party revenue and only commissions and fees in the case of Marketplace revenue. Accordingly, we steer our operations not on the basis of our total revenue, but rather on the basis of Gross profit, as changes between third-party and first-party sales are largely eliminated at the Gross profit level.
- Marketplace revenue reached €20.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, up 6% compared to the first quarter of 2020. This was mostly driven by increases in Commissions, Fulfillment and Marketing & Advertising revenue streams, which increased by 9%, 11% and 36% year-over-year respectively.
- Commissions grew by 9% largely due to an increase in the share of higher commission rate categories including fashion, beauty or food delivery.
- Fulfilment revenue increased by 11% largely as a result of pricing changes within our cross-border logistics which were initiated in the second half of 2020. As part of these changes, part of the international shipping fees that were previously charged to sellers was instead passed on to consumers. This change resulted in some of our international logistics revenue being recorded as Fulfillment revenue instead of revenue from Value Added Services.
- Value-Added Services decreased by 13% as a result of the aforementioned pricing changes in our cross-border logistics pricing.
- Marketing & Advertising revenue increased by 36% as a result of the robust take-up by advertisers, both Jumia sellers and third parties, of Jumia Advertising solutions as we continue to improve the relevance and user experience of our ad solutions.
Gross Profit
Gross profit increased by 11% to €20.4 million in the first quarter of 2021 from €18.4 million in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of the increase in Marketplace revenue. On a constant currency basis, Gross profit in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 21% year-over-year.
Fulfilment Expense
- Fulfilment expense decreased by 11% in the first quarter of 2021 on a year-over-year basis. This was mostly a result of fulfilment staff costs savings as well the change in our delivery pricing model from cost per package to cost per stop which was implemented starting from the second quarter of 2020.
- During the first quarter of 2021, Gross profit after Fulfillment expense reached €6.2 million compared to €2.5 million in the first quarter of 2020, demonstrating continued unit economics improvement as we drive usage on our platform.
- Lastly, we are able to pass on an increasing proportion of our Fulfillment expense to the combination of consumers and sellers via our Fulfillment and Value Added Services revenue streams respectively. The pass-through of our Fulfillment expense, measured as the ratio of the sum of Fulfillment and Value Added Services revenue over Fulfillment expense, increased from 69% in the first quarter of 2020 to 78% in the first quarter of 2021.
Sales & Advertising Expense
- Sales & Advertising expense decreased by 9% from €8.9 million in the first quarter of 2020 to €8.1 million in the first quarter of 2021. This drove marketing efficiencies with Sales & Advertising expense per Order decreasing by 12%, from €1.4 per Order in the first quarter of 2020 to €1.2 in the first quarter of 2021. This was a result of continued programmatic marketing improvements with better targeted and more engaging campaigns across social media and search engines.
General and Administrative Expense
General & Administrative expense, excluding SBC, reached €20.3 million, down 17% on a year-over-year basis. This decrease was attributable to staff costs savings as a result of the portfolio optimization and headcount rationalization initiatives launched in the first quarter of 2020, alongside a decrease in professional fees, including legal expenses.
Operating loss
Operating loss was €33.7 million in the first quarter of 2021 while Adjusted EBITDA loss was €27.0 million, decreasing by 23% and 24% on a year-over-year basis respectively, demonstrating meaningful progress on our path to profitability.
The depreciation of a number of local currencies against the Euro provided some support to costs – on a constant currency basis, operating loss and adjusted EBITDA loss decreased by 19% and 20% on a year-over-year basis respectively.
Cash Position
At the end of March 31, 2021, we had €485.6 million of cash on our balance sheet. This includes approximately €205 million of the total gross proceeds from the offering completed on March 30, 2021, with a remaining €88 million of cash booked in April 2021.
