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  • Airtel Africa Mobile Money Transactions Hit USD 196 B Ahead Of Planned London IPO
    Airtel Africa’s mobile money business processed nearly USD 200 B in transactions over the past year as the telecoms operator expands financial services across 14 African countries, putting it on track for a London listing that analysts say could value the unit at up to USD 10 B. The company’s Sustainability Report 2026, published on Wednesday, showed that Airtel Money’s transaction value climbed 44% to approximately USD 196 B in the finan
     

Airtel Africa Mobile Money Transactions Hit USD 196 B Ahead Of Planned London IPO

11 juin 2026 à 14:32

Airtel Africa’s mobile money business processed nearly USD 200 B in transactions over the past year as the telecoms operator expands financial services across 14 African countries, putting it on track for a London listing that analysts say could value the unit at up to USD 10 B.

The company’s Sustainability Report 2026, published on Wednesday, showed that Airtel Money’s transaction value climbed 44% to approximately USD 196 B in the financial year to March 31, driven by microloans, international transfers and merchant payments. The customer base grew 21% to 54.1 million users.

Chief Executive Sunil Taldar said expanding access to financial services and connectivity remains central to the company’s strategy. “Across Africa, access to connectivity, financial services and digital education is increasingly essential to economic opportunity,” he said in the report.

The growth positions Airtel Money for an initial public offering scheduled for the second half of 2026. Analysts at CLSA estimate the unit could raise between USD 1.5 B and USD 2 B at a valuation of up to USD 10 B, a fourfold increase from 2021, making it one of the largest fintech listings on a European exchange in recent years.

The mobile money business now has an EBITDA margin of 50.8%, above the broader Airtel Africa margin of 49.3%, and contributes 20% of the group’s regional revenue. However, penetration remains at only 29% of Airtel Africa’s 184 million mobile subscribers, with significant room for growth in Nigeria, where only 2.7 million customers currently use the service.

Airtel Africa has also expanded its digital infrastructure, with mobile network coverage reaching 81.9% of the population, including 73.1% in rural areas. Smartphone penetration rose to 49.5%, while data customers grew to 84.2 million.

The company’s agent network, which supports financial inclusion and local entrepreneurship, expanded by 39% to 2.4 million agents. Women account for 44.1% of Airtel Money customers, the report showed.

Beyond financial services, the Airtel Africa Foundation connected 3,043 schools to free internet through a partnership with UNICEF, up from 2,176 the previous year. The company also converted more than 950 network sites from off-grid to on-grid power, cutting diesel consumption by 9.1 million litres.

Feature Image Credits: Developing Telecoms

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  • Zipline’s African Drone Network Finds Gains Beyond Delivering Medical Supplies
    Zipline’s rise in Africa began with the promise of delivering blood and vaccines to remote clinics faster than any road could manage. Nearly a decade later, new peer-reviewed research shows the drones are doing far more than restock medical fridges. Drone delivery networks operated by Zipline in Africa are linked to lower child mortality, higher farmer incomes and stronger local economic activity, according to three new studies examining operations in Rwanda and
     

Zipline’s African Drone Network Finds Gains Beyond Delivering Medical Supplies

11 juin 2026 à 12:08

Zipline’s rise in Africa began with the promise of delivering blood and vaccines to remote clinics faster than any road could manage. Nearly a decade later, new peer-reviewed research shows the drones are doing far more than restock medical fridges.

Drone delivery networks operated by Zipline in Africa are linked to lower child mortality, higher farmer incomes and stronger local economic activity, according to three new studies examining operations in Rwanda and Ghana.

In a set of findings released on Wednesday, the autonomous logistics company documented that the same infrastructure built to bypass broken supply chains is now generating measurable returns in farming productivity, child nutrition, and household wealth.

One study, published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, evaluated a programme in rural Rwanda that used drone-delivered, temperature-controlled pig semen combined with community training. The model increased farmers’ annual income by 17%, generating a 68% return on investment for smallholder pig producers, Zipline said.

Success rates for artificial insemination rose from 48.8% to 74.8% after drone logistics were introduced, the company reported, citing research data.

A separate study, focused on severe acute malnutrition, compared Zipline-served and non-served health facilities in Rwanda over five years. At sites where ready-to-use therapeutic food was delivered by drone, in‑hospital childhood deaths from severe malnutrition fell 22%, the findings show. Visits for severe anaemia in young children dropped 46%.

“The protocol for treating malnutrition has not changed. What changed was whether supplies were there when clinicians needed them,” said Pedro Kremer, Zipline’s head of impact and research. “That is the variable these studies are measuring.”

Another piece of evidence came from a third study examining Zipline’s GH3 distribution centre in northern Ghana. Researchers combined a household survey with satellite analysis of nighttime light intensity, a recognised proxy for local economic activity, and benchmarked the area against 82 comparable locations across the country.

It was found that households within two kilometres of the Zipline hub earned an additional USD 850.00 to USD 1.2 K per year. Liquid asset ownership fell about 27% with every additional 1.5 km from the hub, and improvements in drinking‑water access followed the same proximity pattern. Furthermore, nighttime light intensity near the hub was “significantly higher” than at the 82 comparable locations.

The results come as Zipline accelerates its buildout across the continent. In Nigeria, the company announced plans last month to grow from three distribution centres to 15 by 2028, potentially giving nearly 100 million people faster access to medical supplies. Rwanda is adding an urban delivery system, Platform 2, in Kigali, while Ghana, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire continue to expand.

“This research shows what communities and governments across Africa have seen firsthand: when essential supplies reliably reach the people who need them, outcomes change,” said Caitlin Burton, Zipline’s chief executive for Africa and emerging markets.

However, an on-and-off debate over cost remains a sticky point. Ghana’s Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh told a press conference in Accra in December that an audit of Zipline’s contract revealed that only 12% of areas served qualified as “hard-to-reach” and only 4% of deliveries could be classified as emergencies.

The minister said the government owes Zipline GHC 174 M (USD 12.5 M) and has raised questions about whether high operational costs are justified.

Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga called the contract a “drain on national resources” and argued the health service should have developed its own drone capacity. Opposition has also come from Parliament’s Health Committee chairman, Dr. Mark Kurt Nawaane, who described Zipline as “a solution to a problem the country does not have” and said the real challenge is a shortage of voluntary blood donors, not transportation.

The company maintains that it runs one of the highest-impact, most cost-effective interventions ever studied, across multiple domains, including immunisations, maternal mortality, and nutrition. The Country Manager of Zipline Ghana, Daniel Kwaku Merki, pushed back against claims that the company’s drone delivery service is being misused to transport non-essential items, insisting that such non-medical deliveries are “extremely rare.”

Zipline’s CEO for Africa and emerging markets, said in Wednesday’s press release that the research shows measurable results across multiple sectors. “Zipline began by improving access to critical health supplies. Today, the same infrastructure is strengthening nutrition systems, agricultural productivity and local economies,” she said.

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  • Egyptians Are Using AI For Shopping But Won’t Let It Touch Their Money
    Nearly all Egyptian consumers use artificial intelligence to help them shop, but only a fraction trust AI to complete a purchase on their behalf; a paradox that reveals a broader challenge facing the global payments industry as it rushes to build infrastructure for autonomous commerce. A Visa study released Tuesday found that 91% of consumers in Egypt have used AI tools to assist with shopping, comparing prices, checking reviews and finding gift ideas. Fully 97% say the technology makes onli
     

Egyptians Are Using AI For Shopping But Won’t Let It Touch Their Money

10 juin 2026 à 11:33

Nearly all Egyptian consumers use artificial intelligence to help them shop, but only a fraction trust AI to complete a purchase on their behalf; a paradox that reveals a broader challenge facing the global payments industry as it rushes to build infrastructure for autonomous commerce.

A Visa study released Tuesday found that 91% of consumers in Egypt have used AI tools to assist with shopping, comparing prices, checking reviews and finding gift ideas. Fully 97% say the technology makes online shopping faster and easier. Yet when asked whether they would trust an AI agent to handle checkout, that figure collapsed to just 38%.

The findings, from the annual Stay Secure survey conducted by Wakefield Research, lay bare the gap between consumer appetite for AI-assisted discovery and their reluctance to cede control of the payment itself. The study surveyed 5,800 adults across 17 markets in Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

The trust gap is not unique to Egypt. In South Africa, only 23% of consumers would trust an AI agent to complete a purchase, according to the same study. In Kenya, that figure stood at 29%. Across the region, consumers are embracing AI for research, but they draw a firm line when money changes hands.

“Consumers see fraud protection as a shared responsibility, but they expect financial institutions, governments, and payment providers to take the lead,” said Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president for North Africa, the Levant and Pakistan.

The study also revealed a rapidly shifting e-commerce landscape. Eighty‑five percent of Egyptian consumers have purchased products directly through social media platforms. But as commerce migrates to new channels, fraud follows. Among consumers who reported experiencing a financial scam in the past 12 months, some 36% of respondents, nearly half said the incident occurred on social media, more than on any other platform.

In 2025 alone, Egyptian authorities said they thwarted financial fraud operations worth an estimated EGP 4 B (approximately USD 77 M), according to statements from the Central Bank of Egypt. Across the continent, an Interpol‑coordinated operation in early 2026 involving 16 African countries resulted in 651 arrests and exposed scams tied to over USD 45 M in losses.

The findings arrive as Visa, Mastercard, and other payments giants race to prepare financial institutions for agentic commerce – autonomous transactions executed by AI agents with minimal human involvement. Visa has already begun enrolling banks in its Agentic Ready programme, which enables institutions to process such payments.

But as the Egypt data makes clear, the infrastructure is arriving ahead of consumer trust. Asked who should bear primary responsibility for fraud protection while shopping online, nearly half of Egyptian consumers pointed to government authorities. Only 13% believed consumers themselves should be primarily responsible.

The path forward remains uncertain for payments companies. Consumers have demonstrated they will use AI to discover products and compare prices. Whether they will ever trust it to spend their money remains an open question.

Feature Image Credits: Consultancy-ME

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  • Nigeria Plans Salvage Job For Its eNaira Digital Currency Flop
    Nearly five years after its high-profile launch as Africa’s first central bank digital currency, Nigeria’s eNaira is being quietly repurposed. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has acknowledged in a new strategy document that adoption of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has been slow, and is now repositioning it away from a consumer-facing payment tool toward a backend infrastructure for government disbursements and cross-border settlements. The eN
     

Nigeria Plans Salvage Job For Its eNaira Digital Currency Flop

9 juin 2026 à 16:06

Nearly five years after its high-profile launch as Africa’s first central bank digital currency, Nigeria’s eNaira is being quietly repurposed. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has acknowledged in a new strategy document that adoption of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has been slow, and is now repositioning it away from a consumer-facing payment tool toward a backend infrastructure for government disbursements and cross-border settlements.

The eNaira, launched in October 2021 to much fanfare, has struggled to gain traction. According to the CBN’s Payments System Vision (PSV) 2028 strategy, unveiled on June 1, the CBDC currently has “millions of wallets” but has processed only about NGN 22 B (USD 16 M) in transactions. This is a fraction of the nearly 1 quadrillion naira in total electronic payments processed in 2024, and well below the 300 million transactions the bank had envisioned for the digital currency by 2026.

In the PSV 2028 document, the CBN acknowledged that barriers to the eNaira’s success included “limited stakeholder engagement and buy-in” during its design and implementation. The bank conceded that adoption had been slow, with the CBDC offering little that existing bank apps, fintech wallets and mobile money platforms were not already providing more conveniently.

Rather than competing directly with these established platforms, the CBN now wants the eNaira to become part of the infrastructure that underpins Nigeria’s digital payments ecosystem. The strategy, which runs through 2028, places the CBDC alongside initiatives such as open banking, digital identity and cross-border payments frameworks.

The rethink comes amid a broader strategic shift at the CBN under Governor Olayemi Cardoso, who has prioritised stabilisation, trade facilitation and investor confidence.

The PSV 2028 framework, unveiled at a gathering of banking executives and fintech operators in Abuja on June 1, aims to position Nigeria among Africa’s leading payment ecosystems by promoting faster, safer digital transactions and strengthening cross-border payment systems under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The path forward for the e-naira will focus on government-to-person (G2P) payments, such as welfare disbursements and subsidies, as well as cross-border settlements. “Routing every government payment through the eNaira is where the plan argues with itself,” noted one analysis of the strategy, pointing to the tension between the CBDC’s past failures and its future ambitions.

The repositioning reflects a quiet admission that Africa’s first CBDC experiment, once hailed as a landmark step toward a cashless economy, has fallen short of its original promise. Now, the CBN is betting that a more utilitarian role can salvage the project.

The post Nigeria Plans Salvage Job For Its eNaira Digital Currency Flop appeared first on WeeTracker.

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  • 5 Times African Businesses Fought People For Bad Reviews And It Backfired
    Some customers write a bad review. Sometimes a brand fights back. And sometimes, the fight becomes headline news. In an era where a single tweet, TikTok, or Facebook post can dent a brand’s reputation, some African companies have taken “defending their name” to extremes; dragging customers and critics to court, threatening multimillion-dollar suits, or even involving police. From tomato paste makers and biscuit brands to beauty labels
     

5 Times African Businesses Fought People For Bad Reviews And It Backfired

16 septembre 2025 à 14:01

Some customers write a bad review. Sometimes a brand fights back. And sometimes, the fight becomes headline news.

In an era where a single tweet, TikTok, or Facebook post can dent a brand’s reputation, some African companies have taken “defending their name” to extremes; dragging customers and critics to court, threatening multimillion-dollar suits, or even involving police.

From tomato paste makers and biscuit brands to beauty labels and smartphone giants, these five African companies turned what should have been minor customer complaints into full-blown legal battles, and in the process, showed just how thin the line is between defending reputation and torching it.

Here are real cases revealing the perilous line between protecting reputation and silencing dissent:

1. Erisco Foods vs. Chioma Okoli (Nigeria)

In September 2023, Chioma Okoli, a consumer in Lagos, posted a Facebook review claiming that Erisco’s Nagiko Tomato Mix tasted “too much sugar”.

What followed was a chain of legal actions. Erisco filed a petition, the Police arrested Okoli, and the matter turned into a full-blown court case.

Erisco’s CEO, Eric Umeofia, made some forceful statements:

“I am pursuing legal charges against her because I have a conscience. Is she right to falsely criticise my product, and people are supporting her?,” he fumed. “I have over 3000 people in my factory; indirectly, we are paying 20,000 people. I cannot allow this type of ‘syndicate’ to come and destroy my business.”

Okoli’s legal representation countered strongly. She has threatened to demand NGN 500 M (~USD 334 K at current rates) from Erisco for violation of her human rights, saying the company’s actions went far beyond what is reasonable.

The saga has become a lightning rod in Nigeria for debates about weaponising cybercrime laws to muzzle legitimate consumer criticism.

This case also highlighted the potential for the Cybercrime Act in Nigeria to be used in defamation or “misinformation” cases, raising concerns among consumer rights advocates, activists, and legal experts about the chilling effects on legitimate criticism.

2. Nuvita Biscuits vs. TikTok Reviewer (Kenya)

Back in 2018, Kenyan TikTokers and Facebook users began complaining that Nuvita’s biscuits were “shrinking” in size while prices rose.

When a popular content creator posted a sarcastic video showing a tiny biscuit in her palm, Nuvita hit back. They issued public denials, flagging takedown requests, and allegedly pressuring the influencer’s agency to silence her.

The dispute escalated into public rows, removal requests for ads, and reported attempts to pressure or discredit the critic, a classic example of a brand pushing back at a consumer’s public review and commentary.

Rather than quelling the backlash, Nuvita’s combative stance supercharged it, with memes, boycott hashtags, and coverage in Kenyan business outlets dissecting its PR blunder.

The incident became a textbook cautionary tale for Kenyan marketers on the dangers of escalating snarky reviews into corporate vendettas.

3. Van Deventer Inc vs. Sizwe Mdakane (South Africa)

In 2023, a South African law firm, Van Deventer Inc, attempted to use the courts to silence a former client, Sizwe Mdakane, after he posted a negative review of the firm’s service on Google Reviews.

Mdakane complained that the advice he received from junior practitioners at the firm was poor. The firm believed this criticism “implied it was unprofessional, dishonest and untrustworthy,” and sought a court order to force the removal of the post and restrain Mdakane from making further comments.

The Gauteng High Court rejected the application. Judge Stuart Wilson, in his ruling, stressed that what matters in defamation isn’t necessarily the intent of the critic, but how a “reasonable reader of ordinary intelligence” would interpret the statement. He found that Mdakane’s comments, while critical, did not meet the legal threshold for defamation that justifies gagging speech.

The judgment was hailed by legal commentators as a landmark win for consumer speech in South Africa.

4. Native Child Africa vs. Beauty Influencer (South Africa)

In 2021, South African haircare brand Native Child Africa sought an interdict (court injunction) against a local beauty influencer who had posted Instagram Stories calling its products unsafe.

The company argued the posts were false and defamatory; the court granted an interim interdict forcing the influencer to stop posting any further criticism pending full trial.

Consumer-rights groups criticised the move as “corporate censorship via lawfare,” warning it could chill honest product reviews.

The case underscored how South African defamation law can be used pre-emptively to muzzle critics, even before any full evidence hearing.

5. OPPO Kenya vs. AIfluence / Influencers

A more modern twist on review-based conflict is playing out in the influencer economy. In early 2025, OPPO Kenya sued the marketing agency AIfluence over a dispute triggered by content creators who claimed they were not paid for their work promoting OPPO’s Reno12 series campaign.

Influencers like Flaqo Raz publicly shared that they had created three months’ worth of content in only two weeks under pressure from OPPO and AIfluence, only for payments to be delayed or not delivered, even five months later.

OPPO Kenya insists it fulfilled its obligations to AIfluence, making an initial 50 % down payment, then the remaining 50% once work was complete, on 25 October 2024.

Still, with unpaid influencers complaining, OPPO filed suit alleging defamation and brand damage due to the agency’s failure.

The earlier mentioned Flaqo, put it plainly: “How you both have handled the influencer team is absolutely disappointing and downright shameful.”

OPPO insists it paid AIfluence in full and accused the agency of defamation for letting unpaid influencers tarnish its brand.

The post 5 Times African Businesses Fought People For Bad Reviews And It Backfired appeared first on WeeTracker.

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  • Nigeria’s Film Industry Has A Radical Plan To Save Itself From Streaming Giants
    As Netflix and Amazon Prime retreat from Nigeria’s original content scene, two of Nollywood’s biggest players, Inkblot Studios and Filmhouse Group, are betting that the time is finally right for a homegrown streaming service. Their joint venture, Kava, is set to launch in August 2025, promising a curated library of Nollywood films and series backed by scale, strategy, and a touch of realism. At first glance, it’s an ambitious leap. Kava e
     

Nigeria’s Film Industry Has A Radical Plan To Save Itself From Streaming Giants

28 juillet 2025 à 15:38

As Netflix and Amazon Prime retreat from Nigeria’s original content scene, two of Nollywood’s biggest players, Inkblot Studios and Filmhouse Group, are betting that the time is finally right for a homegrown streaming service. Their joint venture, Kava, is set to launch in August 2025, promising a curated library of Nollywood films and series backed by scale, strategy, and a touch of realism.

At first glance, it’s an ambitious leap. Kava enters a streaming landscape littered with cautionary tales—iROKOtv chief among them—while global streamers pull back on African investments and creators increasingly pivot to YouTube in search of monetisation and autonomy.

But Kava’s founders insist they’ve learned from past failures. And rather than chase Netflix’s scale or Iroko’s first-mover status, they’re building for depth—with a model that leans on high-quality local content, diaspora appeal, and a sustainable, multi-platform ecosystem.

“We’re not just streaming films. We’re fueling careers and building an infrastructure for African storytelling,” says Kene Okwuosa, Kava’s co-CEO and head of Filmhouse Group.

Filmhouse boasts West Africa’s largest cinema chain and controls a vertically integrated studio-distribution network through FilmOne. Inkblot Studios, behind hits like The Set Up and Up North, was the first Nigerian production house to ink licensing deals with both Netflix and Amazon.

The platform launches with over 30 premium Nollywood titles and promises fresh drops weekly. Featured titles include Alakada Bad and Boujee, Owambe Thieves, What About Us, and House Job. Originals are in the pipeline, and Kava eventually plans to scale beyond Nigeria to tell stories across Africa.

But more than content, the founders say, Kava is a “digital infrastructure” project; a way to centralise Nollywood’s fractured monetisation channels, serve fans directly, and offer creators fairer economics than the ad-driven instability of YouTube or the bureaucratic lag of foreign licensing.

“When we deliver content at scale to audiences beyond ourselves, they’ll fall in love with the stories. They just don’t know it yet,” says Inkblot’s Chinaza Onuzo, who serves as Kava’s co-CEO.

Kava arrives at a transitional moment. Netflix and Prime Video have dialled back their local originals after a brief Nollywood shopping spree between 2020 and 2022. What’s hitting screens now, like Kemi Adetiba’s To Kill A Monkey, are the last remnants of that era. New commissions have slowed to a crawl.

This vacuum has driven creators to YouTube, where lighter, faster productions offer greater creative control and instant ad payouts. But the economics remain brutal. CPMs in Nigeria hover around USD 1.00, and a star actor might cost millions of naira, meaning millions of weekly views are required to break even, let alone profit.

Subscription platforms (SVODs) aren’t much better. iROKOtv, once hailed as the “Netflix of Africa,” spent over USD 100 M trying to crack the Nigerian market, only to retreat in 2023 and pivot to diaspora users in the U.S. and U.K. Its active user base peaked at under 200,000. Even its founder Jason Njoku now insists: “SVOD can’t work here.”

Fresh attempts at wooing the diaspora indicate a push for untapped opportunities, however. Roughly five million Nigerians live abroad, sending more than USD 20 B home every year. They’re already used to subscriptions and hungry for high-quality content that reflects their culture. Kava, along with other newcomer rivals, such as EbonlyLife ON Plus, is chasing that niche.

Kava’s leadership sees itself less as a Netflix clone and more of a niche but deeply committed hub for loyal fans. Product chief Damola Ademola compares the model to anime or horror streaming services like Shudder: “African movies can easily be just like that,” he told TechCabal.

Funding is in motion. A friends-and-family round has already closed, with institutional backing from TLG Capital and VestedWorld. More capital will be instrumental in expanding Kava’s footprint across Africa and into the U.K. and Europe. Yet even with funding, no one is pretending this will be easy.

Feature Image Credits: BusinessDayNG

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  • A Telco’s Surprise Takeover Bid Offers Jolted & Jilted Jumia A Lifeline
    Jumia made headlines as the “Amazon of Africa” for much of the last decade, becoming Africa’s first tech unicorn and going public at USD 14.00 a share in 2019 before soaring past USD 50.00. But in 2025, it’s a complicated tale, exiting markets, shedding services, early backers pulling out, and its stock under USD 5.00. Today, a surprising player is in the wings, plotting a takeover of Africa’s biggest e-commerce company, reports suggest. The suitor is Axian Telecom, the Mauritius-based teleco
     

A Telco’s Surprise Takeover Bid Offers Jolted & Jilted Jumia A Lifeline

3 juillet 2025 à 12:19

Jumia made headlines as the “Amazon of Africa” for much of the last decade, becoming Africa’s first tech unicorn and going public at USD 14.00 a share in 2019 before soaring past USD 50.00. But in 2025, it’s a complicated tale, exiting markets, shedding services, early backers pulling out, and its stock under USD 5.00.

Today, a surprising player is in the wings, plotting a takeover of Africa’s biggest e-commerce company, reports suggest. The suitor is Axian Telecom, the Mauritius-based telecom and fintech group, which recently raised USD 600 M in bonds and quietly amassed an 8% stake in Jumia.

With telecom, mobile money, and brands like Yas and Mixx under its umbrella, which collectively fetched USD 1.1 B in revenue and USD 55 M in profit last year, Axian aims to integrate connectivity, payments, and commerce in one system. Its bond raise, reportedly oversubscribed threefold, was marketed as digital infrastructure capital.

The takeover bid is unfolding against the backdrop of Jumia’s own pivot. CEO Francis Dufay has spent the past two years cutting back—exiting non-core markets like South Africa and Tunisia, cutting services and staff, and narrowing operations to nine key countries.

He’s moved the company from reckless expansion to consolidating fundamentals: rural distribution, pick-up stations, logistics, and stronger margins. “We must deliver the numbers. Execution will rebuild our credibility,” Dufay told the FT last month. And he’s putting a timeline on it: profitability by early 2027.

The stakes are high. Chinese platforms like Temu and Shein are muscling in, using ultra-cheap prices and slick logistics to steal share. Jumia has responded by onboarding low-cost Chinese merchants, creating a Shenzhen team of 70, and folding their offerings into the marketplace.

“We believe we can fight them,” Dufay declared, arguing Jumia’s localised approach and product breadth give it an edge.

And yet the macro still bites. Jumia has weathered multiple currency devaluations across key African markets such as Nigeria and Egypt that crushed margins. Its 2024 revenue fell 10% to USD 167.5 M, with negative EBITDA exceeding USD 54 M; Q1 2025 brought further GMV decline, though Dufay noted orders were up 21% in constant currency.

However, despite GMV growth in constant currency, quarterly active users have stayed stagnant as it struggles to find new customers, and loss-making continued—USD 20 M in Q3 2024 and over USD 18 M in Q1 this year. Although, to their credit, Dufay’s cutbacks have slashed annual losses by over USD 150 M, core profitability remains elusive.

That’s where Axian enters the frame. Telecoms have infrastructure, connectivity, customer reach—and increasingly, money. Combine that with Jumia’s logistics and distribution strength, and that adds up to a digital ecosystem capable of bundling mobile data, mobile money, and e-commerce into one consumer offering. That synergy is reminiscent of what telecoms did in Asia.

Axian CEO Hassan Jaber has framed the bond raise as a strategic “digital infrastructure” play; the acquisition talks have already lifted Jumia shares in New York. And while Dufay has bet on rural Africa’s vast potential—“Africa is the last place on earth with massive untapped demand,” as he put it recently —that demand must translate into reliable repurchase behaviour and stable margins.

Yet the cleanup is underway. Jumia’s soft-exit from unsustainable ventures, its pivot toward Chinese-supplied assortment, and a renewed focus on efficient operations have laid the groundwork. Axian stepping in now indicates infrastructure capital may just write the next chapter.

The post A Telco’s Surprise Takeover Bid Offers Jolted & Jilted Jumia A Lifeline appeared first on WeeTracker.

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  • Bolt SA’s Low-Cost Ride Plug MNC Taps USD 10 M—With Moove’s Backer Behind The Wheel
    MyNextCar (MNC), a key fleet enabler for Bolt in South Africa, has raised USD 10 M in its first institutional funding round—capital that could reshape the country’s low-cost ride-hailing landscape. The investment, led by London-based Emso Asset Management with backing from Bolt, Assemble Capital, and E2 Investments, will help MNC scale its operations and roll out 1,500 new vehicles under Bolt Lite, a budget-focused category powered by the compact Bajaj Qute. For Bolt and its partners, it’s
     

Bolt SA’s Low-Cost Ride Plug MNC Taps USD 10 M—With Moove’s Backer Behind The Wheel

13 juin 2025 à 08:48

MyNextCar (MNC), a key fleet enabler for Bolt in South Africa, has raised USD 10 M in its first institutional funding round—capital that could reshape the country’s low-cost ride-hailing landscape.

The investment, led by London-based Emso Asset Management with backing from Bolt, Assemble Capital, and E2 Investments, will help MNC scale its operations and roll out 1,500 new vehicles under Bolt Lite, a budget-focused category powered by the compact Bajaj Qute.

For Bolt and its partners, it’s a bet on a model that brings affordability, accessibility, and local relevance to South Africa’s mobility market.

Despite the success of Bolt Lite in pilot phases, the journey hasn’t been frictionless. Violent resistance from traditional taxi operators and illegal vehicle impoundments have made lenders wary.

This new funding signals renewed confidence in MNC’s ability to overcome those headwinds and validate an alternative future for urban transport.

To date, MNC has enabled over 700 drivers to earn on Bolt’s platform, with 43% of them being youth and 4% being women.

That demographic tilt is no coincidence. Both Bolt and MNC frame their partnership as part of a broader play to combat youth unemployment and expand financial inclusion via asset-light vehicle access. “This isn’t just about adding cars, it’s about changing lives,” a company spokesperson said.

The investment is also a vote of confidence from Emso, whose previous backing of Moove, a vehicle-financing startup for ride-hailing drivers, signals a growing interest in Africa’s mobility-fintech intersection. E2 Investments’ participation reinforces its impact-driven mandate to fund ventures that generate jobs in underserved segments.

By backing a business model built on small vehicles, lean economics, and broad access, the funders are effectively helping Bolt cement its presence in South Africa’s price-sensitive transport market.

With competition heating up and regulatory tensions still simmering, MNC’s next phase will test whether scale, impact, and margins can co-exist in the country’s rapidly evolving ride-hailing economy.

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