[Transcript] #52: OLX Africa - How the Classifieds platform initially grew and eventually shut down across Africa
Transcript for podcast originally recorded on June 14, 2022
😉 In June 2022, we explored the story of OLX Africa, the classifieds & marketplace platform. OLX was founded around 2006, focusing on markets outside the US, like a global Craigslist. It's owned by Naspers (aka Prosus), which took a big stake in 2010/2011 and grew to 95% by 2014.
OLX entered Africa in 2012, but pulled out of most regions by 2018/2019, and finally waved goodbye to OLX South Africa in Feb 2022. As of June 2022, Naspers OLX Africa isn't running horizontal platforms anymore; they are now focused on vertical marketplaces.
This episode covered a broad discussion on entry strategies into emerging markets, the dynamics of classifieds, the strategies behind horizontal versus vertical marketplaces, and exit strategies (analyzing when to leave markets that aren't meeting corporate goals)..
Companies discussed: OLX, Jiji, Craigslist, Konga, Naspers, Kalahari, Dealfish, Pricecheck, Mocality & Tradestable
Business concepts discussed: Classifieds platforms, classifieds monetization, M&A strategy, e-commerce, social commerce, lift and shift business models & international expansion
Enjoy!
Olumide Ogunsanwo
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Transcript starts here
[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Welcome to Afrobility, a conversation about African business and technology. Today we're going to talk about OLX, the classifieds and marketplace platform. We'll explore the OLX Africa story across four areas.
One, OLX's early history. Two, OLX's growth and other emerging markets. Three, OLX Africa's early history and NASPR's acquisition.And fourth, NASPR's OLX exit from Africa. This episode was recorded on June 5th, 2022. How goes it?
[00:00:27] Bankole Makanju: I'm good, man. I'm in Phoenix. It's hot!
[00:00:31] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Hot and no air conditioning in your hotel room. Why?
[00:00:33] Bankole Makanju: I don't know because I'm trying to get the audio right for the podcast, so we'll figure it out.
[00:00:39] Olumide Ogunsanwo: I was going to make fun of your two hour time limit. The context is we normally record two ish hours, but sometimes two and a half hours, but this episode Bankole has a tight deadline cause you're flying out. We'll try to be fast on this one. How are you doing?
My laptop got fucked up on Friday. My internet got messed up on Saturday, but I'm chugging along. I'll tell you more as the episode progresses, but I feel good.
I'm ready to do this episode. OLX was founded in 2006. It's a classified business that focuses on non-US markets, especially developing markets. So think about it like Craigslist outside of America, basically.
[00:01:22] Bankole Makanju: It's a classifieds website. But also an app. Imagine if Craigslist had an app and did a bunch of other things, transactions, different verticals.
[00:01:32] Olumide Ogunsanwo: It's interesting for many reasons, Number one, it's owned by Naspers, aka Prosus. Naspers remember, if you remember largest African company by market cap, we spoke about it on Afrobility episode slash episode five, afrobility.com/Naspers for the most part, I'll be calling OLX Naspers OLX Africa to be very specific because there's an OLX group and then there's the Africa part, which is owned by Naspers. So we'll, we'll talk about that. The specific term is Naspers, OLX, Africa. But if you use the term naspers, just think about Naspers as OLX for the sake of this episode.
[00:02:04] Bankole Makanju: Firstly, what Naspers own doesn't Naspers own all of OLX globally.
[00:02:06] Olumide Ogunsanwo: In this episode, I'll, I'll try to say Naspers, OLX, Africa. Okay. 'cause most of the episode would be just about the Africa part. Okay. And the second reason they're interesting is they came to Africa around. 20 11, 20 12 and then they pulled out of all African markets except for South Africa in 20 18, 20 19.
And then they eventually pulled out South Africa in February, 2022. So now they came in 20 11, 20 12 and they've been out of everything in 2022. So 11 years. Yeah. Pulling out of the entire market. So we'll discuss that 'cause I think this is one of the first times where the company has basically completely left the market.
So very unique. It's also worth looking
[00:02:36] Bankole Makanju: in context, right, of the 2009 10 11 e-commerce boom in Africa. That was a fun time. Yes. And they came, NASPERS invested in a lot of things. Just researching for this. There's Dilfish, Mocality, Pricecheck, a bunch of NASPRESS companies, and Konga Big Chex. And, you know, fast forward 10 years, they have zero.
They're just like, nah, I'm out. You guys, it's all yours.
[00:02:59] Olumide Ogunsanwo: We'll explore all that today. And it's basically part of a trilogy classified e-commerce strategy. We discussed GG three weeks ago on episode 51. Today we're going to discuss OLX. Today's episode 52. And then two to three weeks from now, we'll discuss Konga, which is episode 53.