We interviewed you in 2019 as part of our report on the challenges facing e-commerce, which was marked by the closure of several African players. How would you describe the situation today?
Like all other players, we also faced the turmoil of the COVID crisis in its early stages. We had to close our offices for about 40 days to protect our employees, but thanks to our agility and our corporate culture, which makes it easier for us to adapt to situations, we were able to respond fairly quickly. And as you know, there was more fear than harm, and more apprehension than actual effects of COVID in sub-Saharan Africa.
But where are we today? A crisis can be both an accelerator of opportunities and, above all, of transformation, which is precisely why we have set about rethinking our business model and adapting to new opportunities and trends in our main markets. We are a young company that has weathered several threats and continues to be resilient in African markets through flexible, agile tools and processes and good market intelligence. Today, our focus is on seeking organic growth that will enable us to replicate our successful model in several other African countries.
How do you see the e-commerce situation evolving in the coming years?
Personally, I am quite optimistic about the future of e-commerce in Africa, and the figures shared and validated by several major international firms, such as McKinsey, give hope for better days ahead. According to McKinsey, e-commerce activity in Africa could generate $75 billion in revenue by 2025. A study published in 2019 by Deloitte predicts that "660 million Africans are expected to have a smartphone" by 2020, "compared to 336 million in 2016." This would still represent a penetration rate of nearly 55%, and nearly half a billion Internet accesses will then be via smartphones.
We have been in business for five years and see the impact of these figures on our business and traffic on a daily basis. Increasingly, all the key success factors that determine the development of e-commerce in sub-Saharan Africa are coming together and bringing the market to maturity. Five years ago, there were few logistics players and infrastructures, and online payment players and methods were virtually non-existent, but today the development of FinTech startups in several African countries and the possibility of mobile money payments on websites have changed everything. A second life for African e-commerce is beginning.
What are the signs that things are moving in the right direction
?
The positive news of recent days, Starzplay's strategic alliance with Jumia, and the acquisition of Paystack by the American giant Stripe will give a big boost to e-commerce in Africa. I'm going to reveal Afrimalin's internal reading on the impact of the health crisis on e-commerce in the countries where we operate. Clearly, we have only seen positives. We have conducted a number of studies that have validated our market insights. For example, we have seen traditional restaurants completely transform themselves in response to this health crisis in all countries. Afrimalin's strength lies in listening to users and different markets, which logically leads us to develop new services and new features that are useful to our users. What's more, we have the support of all our leaders, who are just as convinced as Thibault Launay, co-founder of Afrimalin, who never tires of saying, "We are more convinced than ever that the development of e-commerce is only just beginning on the continent and that Afrimalin has a role to play in this adventure
."
Are you about to launch your Marketplace? What are your ambitions? In which countries will it be operational?
Afrimalin aims to be an intelligent and agile company, technologically robust and able to deploy useful online services for its users at any time. Launching our Marketplace today is only logical and a response to the many requests from our users. As the leader in classified ads in French-speaking Africa, we have always tried to see things differently in our various markets and have embraced our position as a hybrid platform. Today, all the key success factors I mentioned earlier are in place for merchants to truly engage in e-commerce. So, in the first weeks of November, our users will be able to order their products and services directly and easily online and have them delivered, thanks to two new features, "Online Payment" and "Home Delivery," displayed on certain ads.
The new e-merchants are hand-picked Afrimalin merchants whose reliability and product quality have been validated by our sales teams. We have also signed exclusive contracts with two delivery companies in Benin to support us in our project. I would like to announce that La Marketplace is only the first of five services we plan to offer. And all this is only possible today thanks to fintech startups that work tirelessly every day to bring together buyers, sellers, and trusted third parties like us. Benin is the pilot country for the launch of the Marketplace, and two other countries will follow. We chose to test one country first because we don't spend recklessly. For a company like ours, survival and sustainability are among our primary ambitions. It is this rigor in spending that allows us to remain an important player in the sector. Our ambitions are clear: to continue to be a useful service platform for our users for as long as possible. We want to remain AFRIMALIN and an important player in e-commerce in French-speaking Africa.