Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE:JMIA) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

We actually — the fact that we want to be more reasonable and more focused in the new categories that we developed doesn’t prevent us from doing the right things on the other categories. So we’re also developing higher ID categories, such as consumer electronics and commission. And this does not conflict with our push on everyday categories such as health, beauty and fashion, for example. Specifically on your question on take rates on these categories, the higher ID categories. Indeed we don’t sell a phone or laptop or TV with the same margin that we would capture for, let’s say, parachute . However, what matters to us is the whole equation with our logistics costs and our marketing costs. We know for a fact that on consumer electronics categories, our operating model works, and we can get very healthy economics across all of our markets from those categories.

So we’re very confident in the fact that we need to develop or build and supply in these categories, and it does not conflict with our focus on everyday categories. Antoine, may I let you take the question on cash.

Antoine Maillet-Mezeray: Yes. I’ll take the third one. The cash burn is a function of three things; CapEx, working cap movement and EBITDA. Regarding the CapEx, 2022 has been so far a year of investment, and we intend to decrease the CapEx investment in the coming quarters. On working cap, we have been this quarter impacted by payment of Jumia Anniversary marketing invoices, which impacted significantly. And we must keep in mind that in the market we are operating in, given the uncertain macro, trust with suppliers is very important. And we are consciously decided to be super sharp on payment terms and given from time to time to secure the product to pay in advance. This has a bit impacted our cash flow. Then the key driver to reduce cash burn is reducing the cost, and we’re going to reduce EBITDA. At this stage, it’s a bit too early to give more guidance, and we’ll give you more information in the Q4 release.

Catherine O’Neill: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question for today is coming from Lamont Williams at Stifel.

Lamont Williams: Hi. How are you doing? Thanks for taking my questions. The first is on food delivery. It’s been one of the faster growing categories over the last couple of quarters. Could you just talk about the unit economics for that category for food delivery overall? And then secondly, on the sales and marketing cost. How are you thinking about the balance between what level you could have for marketing costs and still grow your active customer base at a pretty healthy rate? How do you think about where that balance is kind of how low the kind of an absolute expense rate? Thank you.

Francis Dufay: All right. So to your first question on food delivery. So that’s our restaurant segment. So as you mentioned, the trends are pretty good, plus 25% year-on-year GMV growth, and we’re very happy with the dynamics that we see in this sector. This is very much a core part of our business, and we intend to keep on pushing the different segments, especially in a very successful geographies like Nigeria. Anyway, you mentioned economics. This is a segment that we intend to manage with the same level of increased discipline, increased focus and increased level of execution across the board. We are open to stopping projects on a country-by-country basis if we believe they’re not adding value, and really apply the same principle that we are applying to the rest of the e-commerce business.