Jumia’s China bet is the real engine of its turnaround

China is where you go when you want to mass-produce cheap, affordable products, and Jumia is the latest company to take that path. While disciplined marketing, cheaper fulfilment, and a leaner cost base have dominated stories about the company’s recent turnaround, the truth is simpler: Africa’s biggest e-commerce company is becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese supply.

As of September 2025, Jumia had about 24,000 China-based sellers on its marketplace and roughly 2.2 million China-sourced items sitting in its warehouses across Africa, according to its 2025 Investor Day presentation on November 13, 2025. Of its over 25,000 international merchants, Chinese partners dominate. In Q3 2025, items sold from China grew 55% year-on-year.

This pivot is deliberate. Jumia has shifted from chasing Africa’s aspirational higher middle class to serving the continent’s lower-middle-income consumers. And this requires a supply base that matches the actual spending power of African households. 85% of Africans live on less than $5.50 a day ($165 per month), according to the World Bank.

“Our customers are the lower middle class of Africa… people making $150 to $400, $500 a month,” group CEO Francis Dufay said during the investors’ day presentation. “The fantasised middle class making $2,000 and driving to work does not exist.”

Before 2022, Jumia leaned heavily toward big global brands and aspirational items. But that audience was small, and the unit economics did not scale.

“The price points were too high because of too much focus on fancy brands,” Dufay said during the presentation. “People love to focus on Apple and L’Oreal rather than cheap white-label brands from China. We had to change that.”

Early days

Jumia began operations in Lagos in 2012 with ambitions of becoming the Amazon of Africa: a one-stop online marketplace for electronics, fashion, groceries, and more. It burned cash on marketing and discounts, riding the wave of Africa’s then-emerging middle class.

By 2019, the company became the first African tech company to list on the New York Stock Exchange at $14.50 per share, hitting unicorn status. But its operating losses mounted. At its peak, Jumia operated in 16 countries across many verticals, including food delivery.

“After the IPO in New York in 2019, the company was able to raise a lot of money and burn it very fast, quite helped at the time by the COVID bubble,” Dufay said during the presentation. “Jumia was at a phase of growth at all costs, like a lot of other tech companies, and it came with negative consequences on the quality of operations and unit economics.”

By late 2022, Jumia was burning $200 million a year, triggering a leadership overhaul. Over the last three years, the company has aggressively cut costs and clarified its identity. It has exited unprofitable verticals, stopped stocking categories such as groceries, pulled out of several countries, and reduced staff from 4,500 to 2,000. It shifted fulfilment toward pickup centres, now 72% of deliveries, up from 38% in Q3 2022.

“It is a big relief that we are finally able to focus only on e-commerce,” Dufay said.

The results are beginning to show: revenue is up 6.79% to $45.6 million in Q3, 2025, from $42.7 million in Q3, 2021. Operating loss is down 72.81% to $17.4 million from $64 million. Advertising spend per order is down $0.9 from $2.9 in Q3, 2022. Fulfilment cost per order is down to $2.1 from $3.5.

Jumia’s share price closed in November 2025 at $12.68, with a $1.55 billion market cap, and it only operates in nine countries now.

Jumia’s Turnaround Tracker

Visualising the shift from “Growth at all costs” to the “China Engine.”

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