Jumia, Africa's 'Amazon', seeks to move on from a bruising 2019

Jumia Technologies will focus on proving it can turn a profit after a bruising 2019, one of the e-commerce giant's co-founders - Jeremy Hodara - has said.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-CHIEF AND EXECUTIVE AND FOUNDER, JEREMY HODARA SAYING:

"Now we're going to be extremely disciplined and very focused on our path to profitability, and that's where we are going."

Africa's first tech company to list in New York hit a peak value of close to $4 bln, but has seen its shares fall by nearly 70% since its initial public offering in April.

They tumbled after short-seller Citron Research cast doubt on its sales figures - dealing a major blow to investor confidence.

Late last year, it shut its e-commerce service in Cameroon and Tanzania and halted food delivery in Rwanda.

Hodara declined to say whether more markets could face the axe.

Instead, he said the business would focus on boosting revenue by making its payment platform - JumiaPay, and infrastructure network available to third parties.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-CHIEF AND EXECUTIVE AND FOUNDER, JEREMY HODARA, SAYING:

"It's not a fintech company, it's not a marketplace, it is an e-commerce ecosystem where we have a very strong marketplace, a very strong logistic platform and a very strong payment platform that compliments each other to make Jumia what it is."

Hodara declined to comment on whether Jumia planned to seek more outside cash, but said that as the business scaled up, costs would come down.

He said improvements to its algorithms were also helping.