Jumia – Pan-African technology company that is built around a marketplace, has partnered with United Parcel Services (UPS) – an American multinational shipping, receiving and supply chain management company to expand its delivery service infrastructure across African countries.
The new partnership between both companies is expected to allow UPS customers either pick-up or drop-off packages across the African continent through Jumia’s stations in Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria.
Furthermore, Jumia is expected to expand to Ghana and Ivory Coast which would also be a boost for the rest of its African market.
Also, Jumia intends to leverage on the framework of UPS’s network across 220 countries and territories to help users deliver their packages.
Reports show that third-party logistics is a fluctuating industry in Africa, therefore, UPS is hoping to leverage on Jumia’s existence to bridge this gap. Jumia which had started its logistics business in 2015 opened its operations to third parties in 2020, reserving it exclusively to e-commerce and food vendors operating on its marketplace.
Apoorva Kumar, Jumia’s senior vice president of Logistics, said, “At the beginning of our journey, the launch of the e-commerce platform 10 years ago, logistics infrastructure was one of the most challenging aspects of our operating environment. This challenge was a catalyst for us to build an unparalleled logistics platform in Africa offering our sellers and consumers reliable, convenient and cost-effective delivery services.”
He added, “Today, we are helping other businesses overcome these infrastructure challenges by giving them access to our logistics platform. We are delighted and humbled by the opportunity to partner up with UPS, a global logistics leader, to offer them last mile solutions in Africa. We view this as a validation of the strength of our logistics platform as well as an incentive to double down on our efforts to further enhance our services and build a world-class logistics business in Africa.”
Gregory Goba Ble, UPS vice president of engineering and operations for Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Africa said, “UPS’s asset-light approach, like the Jumia partnership, offers a pathway for businesses to quickly and reliably connect to new customers around the world through our global network, potentially accelerating their revenue growth.”
The logistics service enables the delivery of packages through a network of local partners while the payment services facilitate the payments of online transactions within Jumia’s ecosystem.
