Jumia’s Parent company, Rocket Internet has reported a consolidated loss of EUR617 million for the first half of 2016. Its eCommerce business in Africa under the Jumia Brand recorded EUR35.4 million loss within the same period. This is a 19% reduction compared to its net loss of EUR43.7 Million recorded in first half of 2015.
Jumia is not out of the woods yet as revenue also fell by 56% to EUR33.0 million compared to last year when it recorded EUR75.8 million. Jumia’s EBITDA margins fell by 107.5% compared to 57.6% fall reported in the same period last year. The company said the fall in earnings was largely as a result of the devaluation of the Nigerian Currency.
Three Months ago, Rocket Internet scrapped its Africa Internet Group (AIG) holding company for all its eCommerce verticals in Africa, restructuring everything into Jumia. The group said that the restructuring of AIG into Jumia had helped it increase its customer base by 92.2% from 1.0 million last to 2.0 million this year. During the same period, the number of active customers increased from 800,000 to 1,2 million.
Jumia said it will need additional cash funding as company’s burn rate increased by 50%. Its cash position for the first half of the year fell to EUR5 million versus EUR10 million held in the same period last year.
