Consolidation in Africa as classifieds player Jiji acquires their main competitor OLX

[NelsonG]

As we saw from our recent TechCrunch Battlefield in Africa last year, the continent is producing bigger and bigger tech players, and one can see this in the consolidation in the market.

Today Jiji, one of the largest marketplaces for classifieds in Africa, has acquired their main competitor on the African market, OLX, and their businesses in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania.

The acquisition means Jiji will now be able to access 300 million people across five markets. This is something of a coup for a company originally from Ukraine, pulling off an acquisition in one of the world’s last huge, relatively untapped regions. The transaction is supported by one of Jiji’s principal investors, Digital Spring Ventures.

Jiji is the highest rated app in Nigerian e-commerce, with more than six million unique active users and 50,000 professional sellers listing more than one million items in a rapidly growing market of 200 million people. It’s now aiming for 10 million users in the next couple of years.

Vladimir Mnogoletniy, co-founder of Jiji, commented: “This partnership is pivotal to Jiji’s future business model and success, as it paves the way for building the continent’s largest Africa-based classified business serving a market with a combined population of over 300 million in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. We continue to act as a long-term investor in Africa and are excited by the exceptional opportunities this young and dynamic continent has to offer. In the next 2-3 years we aim to be one of the top 10 classifieds businesses in the world by traffic.”

Jiji’s main competitors in Africa are Jumia and Tonaton.

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