Jumia Technologies AG Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. Welcome to Jumia's Results Conference Call for the Second Quarter of 2025. I will now hand the call over to Ignatius Njoku, Head of Investor Relations at Jumia. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our second quarter 2025 earnings call. With us today are Francis Dufay, CEO of Jumia, and Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, Executive Vice President, Finance and Operations. We would like to remind you that our discussions today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Moreover, these forward-looking statements may speak only to our expectations as of today. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements. For a discussion of some of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements expressed today, please see the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 20-F as published on March 7, 2025, as well as our other submissions with the SEC. In addition, on this call, we will refer to certain financial measures not reported in accordance with IFRS. You can find a reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures to the corresponding IFRS financial measures in our earnings press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website. With that, I'll hand it over to Francis.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Jumia's second quarter of 2025 earnings call. We believe that this quarter marks a clear turning point in our journey. We continue to build on the disciplined execution that has defined our transformation over the past two years, with a strong focus on growth and operational efficiency to advance our path towards sustainable profitability. This quarter we delivered solid growth in physical goods with orders up 18% and GMV up 10% year-over-year, excluding the impact of our exits from South Africa and Tunisia. Excluding corporate sales, physical goods GMV grew by 24%, highlighting strong underlying consumer demand across our markets. Revenue rose by 25% year-over-year, demonstrating the resilience of our core business. We narrowed our loss before income tax to $16.3 million for the quarter and significantly reduced our cash burn to $12.4 million, driven by higher revenue across multiple streams and disciplined execution. We ran a successful Jumia anniversary campaign, further strengthening consumer engagement and driving order growth. Strong top-line momentum, enhanced unit economics, and disciplined cost management demonstrate our clear progress towards sustainable profitability and position us well on our path to breakeven. Based on Q2 2025 results and the current quarter business trends, we are raising our full-year 2025 guidance for loss before income tax to a range of $45 million to $50 million, while maintaining our full-year 2026 targets for loss before income tax of $25 million to $30 million and reaffirming our target to achieve full-year profitability in 2027. Let's now review our results for the second quarter. We delivered another quarter of solid usage trends, building on the momentum established earlier this year. Adjusted for perimeter effects, physical goods orders grew 18% year-over-year, driven by strong demand, affordability, and assortment strategy, expansion to secondary cities, and effective use of efficient marketing channels. As a quick reminder, our core business and strategic priority is physical goods, accounting for 99% of orders and approximately 100% of GMV this quarter. The remainder is made of digital products sold through the dedicated JumiaPay app. As part of our strategic focus on scaling physical goods e-commerce, we have reduced our emphasis on JumiaPay app transactions, which historically contributed high order volumes but minimal revenue. While this shift affected total orders growth in the quarter, physical goods orders remained very strong, reflecting healthy consumer engagement with our core marketplace. Quarterly active customers ordering physical goods increased by 13% year-over-year, underscoring the positive impact of our customer acquisition and retention efforts. Customer loyalty also continued to improve. 42% of new customers who placed an order in Q1 '25 made a repeat purchase within 90 days, up from 37% in the same period last year. Demand remains strong across key categories including electronics, phones, home and living, fashion and beauty. Please note, this quarter also marked the first time we have fully lapsed the significant currency devaluations in Egypt and Nigeria, resulting in a cleaner year-over-year comparison and highlighting the underlying strength of our business. Physical goods GMV grew 10% year-over-year in reported currency and when excluding corporate sales, GMV increased by 24%, driven by healthy momentum in our core consumer business. The average order value for physical goods in Q2 '25 stood at $36.3, down from $39.2 in Q2 '24, primarily reflecting the impact of reduced corporate sales in Egypt. We expect to see GMV growth accelerate in the second half of this year. Revenue for the quarter was $45.6 million, up 25% year-over-year. This growth was driven by increased usage and stronger monetization of our marketplace. Our revenue mix also shifted slightly towards first-party sales this quarter, accounting for 52% of total revenue supported by strong performance from key partners, including Starlink in Nigeria and Kenya. Advertising revenue was $1.9 million this quarter, accounting for 1% of GMV. We see meaningful upside as we scale this high-margin revenue stream. This is a key operational priority, allowing us to increase marketplace monetization. In addition to our Q2 performance, we are sharing early Q3 trends to provide further visibility into our current momentum. In July, and adjusting for perimeter effects, physical goods orders grew approximately 32% year-over-year, while GMV increased 21%. These results reflect sustained consumer demand and a strong start to the second half, reinforcing our confidence in raising the full-year outlook. Now let me provide a brief update on our progress towards profitability. We remain firmly on track to achieve our 2027 strategic goals, driven by decisive actions to build a leaner, more efficient organization. Our structural cost initiatives continue to progress across multiple areas. For example, overall headcount has declined by 5% since the beginning of the year, with just over 2,050 employees on payroll as of June, reinforcing our disciplined approach to cost management. Headcount reductions were driven by strict hiring discipline enabled by operational efficiencies, automation, and business simplification. We expect G&A expenses to decline further in the second half of the year as these organizational changes continue to take effect. In technology, we are executing against our long-term efficiency roadmap. In Q2, we expanded AI implementation across key operational processes and successfully renegotiated major vendor agreements, such as our new AWS contract effective May 1, 2025. These actions are expected to drive improved efficiency in technology spend over the coming quarters. In fulfillment, cost per order increased 1% year-over-year to $2.19, down 5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. We remain focused on reducing fulfillment unit costs through ongoing initiatives to improve warehouse staff productivity and consumer support operations. Our narrowed adjusted EBITDA loss of $13.6 million and improved loss before income tax of $16.3 million compared to the previous year were primarily driven by higher revenue growth across multiple streams. These structural efficiency initiatives are positioned to provide additional operational leverage as they reach full implementation in future periods. Cash burn improved significantly quarter-on-quarter, with net cash used in operating activities declining to negative $12.7 million for the quarter. This includes $4.1 million of positive working capital contribution. Importantly, we achieved 18% growth in physical goods orders year-over-year while reducing our working capital requirements. While working capital may fluctuate in future quarters, we remain confident that our current cash position is sufficient to reach profitability without needing to raise additional capital. A key driver of our growth this quarter was Jumia's 13th anniversary campaign held from May 5th to June 30th across all nine countries. The event featured compelling deals across essential products as well as interactive localized content including games, videos, and offline marketing activities. Over 38,500 sellers participated, up from 36,400 in 2024, a testament to the growing confidence that both customers and sellers place in Jumia and to the strength of our commercial execution. On the supply side, we deepened our relationship with international sellers, particularly from China, to further expand our assortment at competitive prices. In Q2, we sourced $2.9 million gross items from international sellers, accounting for a 36% year-over-year increase adjusted for perimeter effects. We also continued to penetrate underserved upcountry regions outside of the main urban centers, unlocking significant growth opportunities. Orders from these areas now represent 59% of total volumes, up from 52% in the same quarter last year, adjusted for perimeter effects. This expansion strategy continues to deliver high growth, low-cost customer acquisition with minimal fixed cost investments. Let me now provide some country-level execution highlights. Nigeria posted impressive results with physical goods orders rising 25% year-over-year and GMV up 36% year-over-year. This performance reflects robust customer demand supported by an expanded assortment across key categories, deeper reach into secondary cities, and continued fulfillment optimization. As our largest market opportunity, we remain focused on increasing penetration and scaling profitability in Nigeria. Kenya also performed strongly with physical goods orders up 38% year-over-year, while GMV increased 31% in reported currency. Growth was broad-based across categories driven by upcountry expansion and strengthened lender partnerships. Kenya remains a high potential market for profitable growth where we believe that we can build much bigger scale. Ivory Coast delivered solid performance with physical goods orders growing 9% year-over-year and GMV increasing 11% in reporting currency. As a more mature market, Ivory Coast continues to grow at a more moderate pace as we focus on maximizing the value of our scale. We are actively leveraging our position in the market to deepen engagement and enhance monetization. Egypt showed encouraging signs of recovery, while physical goods orders declined 6% year-over-year and GMV fell 50% in reporting currency. Excluding corporate sales, GMV grew 6% year-over-year, reflecting progress in the core consumer business. Orders are trending positively quarter-after-quarter supported by stronger execution and improved fundamentals. Notably, adoption of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) accelerated in Q2, boosting both conversion rate and average order value. Although the macro environment remains difficult, these improvements give us confidence in Egypt's near-term return to growth and long-term contribution to the portfolio. Our other markets portfolio continued to perform well. Collectively, the remaining countries where we operate delivered 27% GMV growth and a 19% increase in physical goods orders. Ghana was a standout with GMV up 110% year-over-year, underscoring the strength of our execution and the relevance of our value proposition. These results highlight our ability to serve Africa's budget-conscious customers while driving sustainable growth across a diverse geographic footprint. Now let me provide an update on Jumia Delivery, our logistics platform as a service for third-party sellers, which leverages our last-mile infrastructure to serve vendors outside our marketplace while adding scale to our ecosystem. The service is now live in Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, targeting social commerce vendors and individual customers with our competitive advantages of wide coverage, affordable pricing, and high reliability. Now turning to the competitive landscape. We continue to observe similar dynamics as last quarter with some moderation in activity from international e-commerce platforms in Nigeria. Importantly, we are seeing increased scrutiny and awareness from local governments regarding the practices of these platforms, particularly following the recent U.S. decision to eliminate the de minimis loophole. This regulatory shift creates a favorable opportunity for local players like Jumia to further strengthen our market leadership position. We're also expanding our public affairs effort this quarter. Our objectives are to help establish and improve local regulatory frameworks for e-commerce marketplace and communicate the benefits of domestic e-commerce platforms for economic development in contrast to international platforms. Recent highlights include the Prime Minister integrating our new warehouse in Egypt, the Minister of Trade integrating our new warehouse in Ivory Coast, and high-level meetings in Ghana to strengthen strategic partnerships. Our extensive local presence enables us to engage effectively with government authorities and support the development of sustainable e-commerce ecosystems across Africa. In closing, we believe we remain well positioned on our path to profitability. We will continue focusing on sustainable growth initiatives, operational efficiency improvements, and cost reduction. We remain confident in our strategic roadmap and deeply committed to creating long-term value for our customers, partners, and shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Antoine for a review of our financials.

Thank you, Francis, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Let me walk you through our financial results for the second quarter. Starting with our top line performance. Second quarter revenue was $45.6 million, up 25% year-over-year and up 22% on a constant currency basis. The year-over-year increase in revenue was driven by ongoing execution and strong demand for our platform. Marketplace revenue for the second quarter was USD 21.6 million, up 8% year-over-year and up 2% on a constant currency basis. The increase was driven by strong usage growth and increases in take rate, but partially offset by lower commissions from third-party corporate sales in Egypt. Revenue from first-party sales was USD 23.6 million, up 47% year-over-year both on a reported and constant currency basis, driven by strong demand with key international brands such as Starlink or Adidas. Turning now to gross profit. Second quarter gross profit was USD 23.9 million, up 11% year-over-year and up 5% on a constant currency basis. The year-over-year improvement was driven by stronger marketplace margins. Gross profit as a percentage of GMV for the second quarter was 13%. Jumia is executing a comprehensive strategy to enhance gross profit margins with marketing on retail media as a key growth driver. Our June launch of an advanced seller advertising platform positions us to significantly expand monetization opportunities. With advertising revenue at 1% of GMV, we see substantial upside potential as we scale this high-margin revenue stream. Turning to expenses. While we see some benefits from our cost initiatives, we expect to deliver more meaningful savings over the coming quarters. Let me walk you through the key expense lines. Fulfillment for the second quarter was USD 10.8 million, up 16% year-over-year and up 9% in constant currency. Fulfillment expense per order, excluding JumiaPay app orders, was $2.19 million, up 1% year-over-year or down 5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. We remain focused on reducing fulfillment unit costs through ongoing initiatives to improve warehouse staff productivity and customer support operations and by leveraging automation. Sales and advertising expense was USD 4.2 million for the second quarter, down 6% year-over-year and down 7% year-over-year in constant currency. This reduction reflects our continued cost discipline while delivering usage growth, validating the effectiveness of our targeted marketing approach. As a percentage of GMV, sales and advertising expense remained flat at 2% compared to Q2 2024. Technology and content expense was USD 9.2 million for the second quarter, representing an increase of 6% year-over-year and up 3% in constant currency. The increase was primarily attributable to currency translation effects. Looking ahead, we anticipate technology and content expenses to decrease as we realize benefits from ongoing workforce optimization and cost savings from recently renegotiated contracts. Second quarter G&A expense excluding share-based payment expense was USD 16 million, down 9% year-over-year and down 14% on a constant currency basis. Staff costs within G&A expense excluding share-based compensation expense increased to USD 8.4 million, reflecting currency translation effects as well as organizational changes. Professional fees temporarily increased due to audit and advisory services. These increases were more than offset by the favorable resolution of tax audit matters together with other cost reduction initiatives. We expect general administrative expenses to decline further as organizational benefits materialize in the second half of the year. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a negative USD 13.6 million or negative USD 13.1 million on a constant currency basis. Loss before income tax was USD 16.3 million, a 28% decrease year-over-year or 17% decline on a constant currency basis. The loss in the quarter was primarily driven by a $2.3 million improvement in gross profit alongside a $1.3 million lower operating expenses and a $2.5 million improvement in net financial results. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the second quarter with a liquidity position of USD 98.3 million, including USD 95.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and USD 2.7 million in term deposits and other financial assets. Overall, Jumia's liquidity position decreased by USD 12.4 million in Q2 2025 compared to a decrease of USD 8.7 million in Q2 2024. Net cash flow used in operating activities was USD 12.7 million in the quarter, including a positive working capital impact of USD 4.1 million. This result reflects our ability to deliver growth while maintaining relatively stable working capital levels. Capex in Q2 2025 was USD 0.7 million compared to USD 0.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. In conclusion, we delivered robust operational results this quarter, including strong double-digit physical goods orders growth in the quarter. We also continued to pursue structural cost reductions, further strengthening our path to breakeven. Looking ahead, we remain intensely focused on operational discipline and margin expansion, which we believe will position us not only for improved profitability this year but also for sustainable long-term growth across our markets. I'll now turn the call back over to Francis for a discussion of our updated guidance.

Thanks, Antoine. Based on current business trends, we are raising our 2025 financial guidance as follows. We now expect PG Orders growth to be in the 25% to 30% range, revised upwards from the previous range of 20% to 25%. GMV is projected to grow between 15% and 20% year-over-year, revised upward from the previous range at 10% to 15%. We anticipate the loss before income tax to be in the range of negative $45 million to negative $50 million. This revised outlook reflects accelerating usage growth in the second half of '25 driven by two key factors. First, our long-term strategy continues to deliver meaningful improvements to our value proposition. Our logistics network is increasingly reliable and cost-efficient, enabling broader geographic reach into underserved cities. We've also enhanced our assortment with better selection and more competitive price points, leveraging relationships with local, international, and Chinese vendors to meet the needs of cost-conscious consumers across our markets. Second, we are now better positioned to scale marketing in a disciplined ROI-focused manner. Over the past 18 months, we significantly reduced online marketing spend. With a strong platform in place, we are now reactivating both paid and free online channels, including CRM and SEO, while maintaining a disciplined approach to customer acquisition. Our ability to grow active customers with limited spend gives us confidence that incremental marketing investment will further accelerate usage. We are already seeing these dynamics play out with usage growth accelerating in July. Together, these dynamics reinforce our conviction in delivering the revised outlook for the year. For 2026, we are maintaining our target for loss before income tax to be in the range of negative $25 million to negative $30 million, reflecting our continued improvement. We confirm our strategic goal to achieve breakeven on a loss before income tax basis in the fourth quarter of '26 and deliver full-year profitability in 2027. I thank you all for your attention. We are now ready to take questions.

Your first question for today is from Brad Erickson with RBC.

So first off, you mentioned the July acceleration. Just curious to learn a little more. What's behind that between maybe macro and the consumer versus anything you guys are doing, whether it's on inventory or marketing or what have you?

Thank you for the question. The acceleration in July is primarily driven by our own initiatives. In terms of macro conditions, there hasn’t been much change compared to the second quarter or even the first quarter. As we mentioned, we have already moved past the devaluations we experienced earlier this year, which has made the GMV hard currency comparison easier. Currently, the macro environment appears fairly stable, which is favorable for us. The factors contributing to the July acceleration and our expectations for the second half of the year, which is reflected in our revised guidance, are twofold. First, we have seen a continued fundamental improvement in our value proposition for customers. This has resulted from the playbook we've been implementing over the last two and a half years, leading to more reliable logistics, increased country coverage, higher satisfaction rates, and a broader and more competitive assortment for budget-conscious customers. More payment options have also strengthened our customer value proposition compared to a couple of years ago, and even compared to last quarter and the quarter before. This enhanced value proposition allows us to resume our focus on various online marketing channels that we had previously deprioritized, now in a way that is very ROI-driven and disciplined. These channels include well-known paid online options, SEO, and CRM—fundamentals we had not heavily prioritized over the last two years as we worked on rationalizing and rebuilding our value proposition. Particularly, paid online marketing had not been a focus, allowing us to save money in that area, but we believe now is the right time to reactivate it because we expect a strong return on investment, thanks to our improved value proposition. It appears to be effective, and we believe it will significantly contribute to the acceleration we are forecasting for the second half of the year, as evidenced by the July figures. Early in the third quarter is looking promising, as we stated earlier in the call. Additionally, we recognize that the year-over-year comparisons in the fourth quarter will be softer because of a significant decline in corporate sales last year. This will likely help ease the year-over-year growth rates as we approach the end of the year.

Yes. Understood. That's great. And then, maybe let's go there on Q4 since you brought it up. I know it's a little early, but as we look towards the holiday, how are you thinking about bringing on more inventory? Kind of like what you guys did last year and maybe just any guardrails you can share around use of cash there that we should be thinking about?

Certainly. Over the past two quarters, we have significantly increased our inventory and working capital. This quarter, however, we are seeing a decrease in working capital, which is positively affecting our cash burn while we continue to grow at a strong pace. This indicates that we are not reliant on continually increasing working capital to accelerate our growth; there is no direct link between the two. We are effectively managing our inventories and working capital in a sensible manner while achieving notable growth. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we typically see Black Friday span much of November, followed by a substantial Christmas season that lasts until early January. We usually begin building our inventories around early October and sell those until late December or early January. We anticipate some fluctuations in working capital at year-end, but we do not expect them to be as significant as last year.

Got it. That's helpful. And then, you mentioned the faster growth on kind of these underserved areas outside of the urban areas. When you think about capacity there, how underutilized are you, would you say? And so, I guess is there more capacity expansion going on there? Maybe how much runway do you have in that part of the business?

You mean in upcountry areas, secondary cities?

Correct, yes.

We have achieved significant success in secondary cities over the past few years. This success is built on the strategies we developed in Ivory Coast and Senegal. Currently, 59% of our orders are being shipped to these secondary cities, a considerable increase compared to last year. However, we recognize that there is still substantial potential for growth. We believe that we remain considerably underrepresented in more rural and secondary cities within large nations such as Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Morocco, and Senegal. There is still a significant opportunity for expansion. We are actively working on plans to expand our logistics in major countries, targeting new cities and enhancing our presence and density of pickup stations in many cities we already serve. We are far from completing this project and continue to see considerable upside in these initiatives across most countries. A clear illustration of this is Nigeria, which makes up only 22% of our gross merchandise volume, a smaller share than Ivory Coast despite being a much larger country. We still see great potential for reaching additional cities in the upcoming months and quarters.

Got it. And then, just want to talk about kind of some of the international initiatives you guys have been putting in place. Obviously been trying to work with more international suppliers for several years now. I guess you mentioned the tariffs. Seems like that's a tailwind. Talk about your visibility on sort of securing greater selection from those suppliers? And then separately, just competitively, any changes that you've seen as a function of the tariffs from the Chinese players, maybe getting focused on regions a bit more outside the U.S.?

I'll begin with the second part. Regarding the tariffs, we view this as a favorable development. We believe that with increased tariffs in the U.S., many Chinese manufacturers will need to adjust their market focus, placing greater emphasis on new markets like Africa. This shift is likely to enhance Jumia's ability to secure supply. Over the past three years, our main focus has been on securing a broad and cost-effective supply for African consumers, which has been challenging as manufacturers were preoccupied with other markets. This has driven our revenue recovery in the last two years. We anticipate that increased attention from Chinese vendors will further benefit us, as we serve as the bridge between them and African consumers, allowing us to capitalize on the shift in Chinese goods exports, although this impact is more medium-term. In the short term, we have significantly improved visibility compared to one or two years ago when securing supply was more difficult due to currency volatility. Last year, with many currencies in Africa experiencing devaluations, it was hard for Chinese suppliers to forecast and for African importers to commit to long-term purchases. Now, with more stable currencies, both our Chinese and local suppliers are better able to commit to Jumia and long-term supply. Reports from reputable banks forecast continued currency stability for the coming months, which is positive for us. Additionally, our efforts over the past two years have made Jumia a more reliable partner for importers and suppliers, providing us with more volume and stronger negotiating power. Our teams are better equipped to manage vendor relationships, allowing us to secure more commitments from them. Overall, we are seeing short-term improvements and can anticipate medium to long-term benefits, aided by tariffs and expected currency stability.

Got it. Okay. And then, just one on Jumia Delivery, you brought it up in the prepared remarks. Can you just remind us on kind of how you think about your general TAM for that and also how we should think about margins on that business?

Sure. Jumia Delivery is diversifying slightly from physical goods for the first time in three years. This was a carefully considered decision made at the right time, as we finally established the necessary assets and logistics to monetize this service without affecting our core business. The target market includes anyone who has a parcel to ship. We specifically focus on parcel delivery, not bulk items or light letters, allowing us to serve a broad market. In our regions, the National Postal Service is often not trusted by local consumers, and there are no reliable alternatives like UPS or DHL. Consequently, we built our own logistics system, as we could not rely on the existing ecosystem. Our service appeals to individuals shipping parcels across cities or from capital to other locations, small e-commerce players, and social commerce merchants using platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. The customer base is fairly broad, informal, and unstructured, but it generates significant volumes. For our marketing strategy, we’re focusing initially on social commerce vendors, many of whom are also on Jumia, as they are easier to connect with and already have substantial volumes. We’ve also noticed many individual customers using our service similarly to how they would use the U.S. Postal Service.

Got it.

Margins-wise, this is a profitable business from the beginning. We set the prices and believe we can be much more competitive than current options. Initially, we are operating at low margins to drive quick adoption. However, it is straightforward for us to price above our already low variable costs, thanks to the significant volumes we are managing in our logistics.

Got it. That's great. And then I just had a couple more, if I could, for Antoine. Just first housekeeping, can you clarify within the raised GMV guidance, is any of that FX related versus just the higher volume? Maybe if you could just remind us what you’re investing in the GMV guidance in terms of FX?

No, it's not related to FX. It's related to the trends we've seen in Q2 and what we are seeing in July. So nothing related with FX.

Got it. And then just, what’s involved in the journey to breakeven by the end of 2026? How much does customer growth impact that in terms of the marketing effort needed to achieve that goal? Just curious.

The goal of profitability will be the consequence of the combination of growth and we are growing without significant marketing investment, as Francis said. We spent a bit of time over the last three months to improve the way we were doing paid online marketing and this is working quite well. So we do not intend to significantly increase the marketing spend. And by the way, when we are recruiting new customers through paid online, or returning customers that are coming back, we are generating profitable transactions from the outset. So it's working pretty well and we do not expect significant additional marketing spend. Then we will hit profitability, thanks to the combination of the top line increase and the cost control we've been implementing over the last two years, be it in tech, G&A, and also the scale that the volumes allow us to do in logistics. You might remember that we said that we could operate between two to three times the current volume with the current cost and this is what we are doing.

What is going on? Hello.

Seems there is no other question.

Did we lose our moderator?

Yes, Tracy, your line is live.

I have a couple of questions that follow up on the previous one regarding profit attribution in the second half and the change in guidance. Are you anticipating a situation where more customers will be placing orders, or will the order rate remain the same as what you are currently seeing? Additionally, will we observe a similar level of customer growth, or will there be an increase in orders per customer due to the differing revenue mix? I'm trying to grasp how you view marketplace revenues and how sustainable the first-party growth has been, which seems quite strong. Furthermore, regarding the GMV trajectory and its balance between marketplace (3P) and first-party (1P), how should we approach this in the future? Initially, I expected that 3P would become even more significant, but I'm uncertain how the second quarter results might have influenced that expectation.

Maybe I can take the first part of it. What we are seeing at the moment is we are recruiting more new customers. That's one. And the customers we have are repurchasing more often. So to answer your question, it's going to be a combination of both. And this is the flying wheel we've been running after.

It will be a combination of both, as it has been in previous quarters. However, looking at the long-term potential, new customer acquisition is where we see the greatest opportunity. We need to attract significantly more customers. While we can increase purchasing frequency to a certain extent, the real advantage lies in boosting the number of active customers. Regarding the growth of first-party sales this quarter and its future mix between third-party and first-party in terms of gross merchandise volume, we have stated before that we are not providing specific guidance on this mix. We are pleased with the performance of first-party, which has its own working capital needs, and we aim to maximize third-party offerings. Our marketplace is fundamentally designed for third-party sales, but we will adapt to local circumstances and opportunities. Our priority is to ensure we have enough stock and availability at competitive prices for our customers. Sometimes, this requires engaging in first-party sales to secure the best deals and maintain profitability. This quarter, we successfully partnered with key brands for first-party sales in large markets, such as Starlink in Kenya and Nigeria and Adidas in Egypt. While these examples illustrate our success, we are not focused solely on increasing first-party sales. Moving forward, we do not anticipate a significant change in the ratio of first-party to third-party sales, although there may be some minor fluctuations.

I have a couple of follow-up questions. First, when comparing the shares of orders from outside capital cities, it appears strong on a year-over-year basis but flat on a quarter-over-quarter basis, shifting from 58% to 59%. Additionally, your share of pickup stations has maintained its trend from 67% to 70%. For my first question, you've mentioned the potential for growth in outside capital city orders. What do you think has kept the ratio steady from Q1 to Q2, and are there any obstacles to unlocking that potential? Secondly, how much further can you enhance the number of pickup stations? Lastly, how stable do you consider your fulfillment cost per order to be? Looking ahead, do you expect further reductions in expenses after this financial year, or do you see the cost base stabilizing in line with customer demand as we approach the fourth-quarter results?

Thanks for the question. Let me address them individually. Firstly, regarding the increase in sales going upcountry, we have seen a nice year-over-year improvement, although it's just a 1 percentage point change from the previous quarter. This incremental change is still significant because it reflects a fundamental shift. We are expanding our delivery services into new cities, and as awareness of Jumia grows among customers, we expect more purchases. Such changes take time, and achieving even 1 or 2 percentage points in a quarter is quite notable. Year-over-year, the shift is substantial, and we don't anticipate any slowdown at this point. We're actively marketing in both large and small cities and remain committed to major urban areas as part of the upcountry initiative. We still see considerable potential, especially in countries where over 60% of orders are delivered upcountry. Regarding the share of deliveries at pickup stations, we don’t have a specific target, as it will largely depend on the proportion of sales in upcountry areas. Initially, we only delivered to pickup stations without offering door delivery, so any changes will correlate with the increase in orders going upcountry. Now, concerning the fulfillment cost per order, we noted stability this quarter, with a 1% increase in dollars year-over-year, but a decrease of 5% in local currency, indicating some operational improvement despite unfavorable FX movements. We expect further efficiencies and reductions in unit costs over the coming years for several reasons, with scale being a primary factor. We're experiencing about 20% growth in order volumes quarterly, which will naturally help lower unit costs. Additionally, we are implementing improvements that will yield benefits soon, particularly in our call centers where we are introducing new tools for automation. This will allow us to manage more interactions with AI conversational bots, reducing the need for human agents for simple inquiries, even some complex ones. As a result, we can decrease staffing while still scaling operations. We also have a significant plan to enhance productivity in our warehouses following our consolidations last year into larger facilities. With a more stable setup, we are now addressing productivity issues. Overall, we believe there's potential to achieve a reduction of up to 10 percentage points in unit costs per order in fulfillment on a year-over-year basis, and we expect to see continued improvements each subsequent year.

My final 2 questions, first on Ivory Coast. I appreciate your statement on the fact that Ivory Coast is a much more mature market, but the 9% seemed quite slow compared to what we saw in 1Q. So what made the change then in terms of growth? And then second, maybe some detail on the finance cost line and how we should think about it going into subsequent quarters?

Yes, let me address Ivory Coast first and then I'll pass it over to Antoine for the finance costs. As you noted, Ivory Coast is a much more developed market for Jumia. We have utilized Ivory Coast as the model for our strategy over the past 2.5 years. When analyzing the figures, it's clear that the GMV in Ivory Coast is significantly higher than that in Nigeria this quarter, despite Ivory Coast having a population of only 30 million and a smaller GDP compared to Nigeria. Jumia has a much stronger presence in the retail sector in Ivory Coast compared to other markets. This leads to less room for growth, of course, and we can be affected by various market events and local consumption trends. In this quarter, while there's been an improvement in GMV growth, we've experienced a decline in orders. We've performed better in high-demand categories, but we've seen a downturn in several low-value categories. This situation is expected to be mostly temporary and partly due to increased take rate commissions and fees. As mentioned earlier, we have chosen to leverage our scale in Ivory Coast to monetize more, given its limited growth potential in comparison to Nigeria. We are focused on profitability here, making a deliberate choice to find the right balance between growth and profitability in our most penetrated market. Our approach differs across markets; in Nigeria, which still holds significant growth potential for us, we are not applying the same monetization strategy. I hope that clarifies things. Go ahead, Antoine.

Yes. The changes in the financial results are primarily due to foreign exchange movements as well as some older investments reaching maturity. Looking ahead, we do not forecast foreign exchange movements, but we do not anticipate any significant impact from investments.

And I would just like to add, Tracy, regardless of everything I just said, at Ivory Coast we still believe it's a market that can deliver double-digit growth on all KPIs in the coming years, right. The market is growing, the economy is fairly stable. Jumia has a very strong reputation. So we're still going to be growing double-digits and we're very confident about our prospects here.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and it also concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.