[Transcript] #53: Konga - How the Ecommerce platform initially grew and eventually reset across Nigeria
Transcript for episode recorded July 3, 2022
Hi everyone,
Sharing the transcript from the Konga episode recorded in 2022.
In 2018, Zinox Technologies acquired Konga and set ambitious goals for the business - “$2B valuation” “800% growth,” “$300M in investments”. 6 years later, it’s hard to tell how this is going. On one hand, there’s excitement about e-commerce in Africa, with more companies coming in and rosy forecasts supported by optimistic estimates of user growth and internet penetration.
However, it’s not all positive. The macroeconomic risk is real. Nigeria’s GDP growth is anaemic and inflation is well over 30%, hardly the ingredients for a successful consumer business. Also, the big dog, Amazon might be coming to Nigeria. Having paused international expansion in 2023, they launched in South Africa in May 2024. Nigeria might be next.
This was a fun podcast to record. You can listen to the episode here. Transcript is below.
Bankole.
#53 Konga
[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Today, we're going to talk about Konga, the Nigerian eCommerce company. We'll explore the Konga story across five areas. First, we'll give some context about the Nigerian eCommerce sector. Second, we'll talk about Konga's early history. Third, we'll talk about Konga's product and monetization strategy, fourth Konga' sale, and then fifth will end with our views on its overall outlook.
This episode was recorded on July 3rd, 2022. We're gonna talk about something today. What are we talking about? We're gonna talk about Konga.
[00:00:26] Bankole Makanju: Africa's eCommerce company. Giant pioneer.
[00:00:28] Olumide Ogunsanwo: So basically we've been doing an eCommerce slash marketplace trilogy. We spoke about Jiji a few weeks ago. We spoke about OLX more recently and it's, we're gonna talk about Konga eCommerce player in Nigeria, AKA marketplace player in Nigeria. And I think, um, they're importance because they're part of the 2012 to 2015 eCommerce wave of excitement in Nigeria.
ECommerce in 2012 to 2015 is like FinTech in 2018 to 2022 in Africa tech.
[00:00:56] Bankole Makanju: Konga is an African eCommerce company. The way to think about it, or the way I think about it is it's very similar to Jumia, same time, same era. They were neck and neck quite a bit,\