Earnings Labs

Jumia Technologies AG (JMIA)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 15, 2024

$6.92

-1.58%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Jumia's Results Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. With us today are Francis Dufay, CEO of Jumia; and Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, Executive Vice President, Finance and Operations. We will start by covering the Safe Harbor. We would like to remind you that our discussions today will indicate forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Moreover, these forward-looking statements may speak only to our expectations as of today. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements. For a discussion of some of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements expressed today, please see the risk factors section of our annual report on Form 20-F as published on May 16, 2023, as well as our other submissions with the SEC. In addition, on this call, we will refer to certain financial measures not reported in accordance with the IFRS. You can find reconciliations of these non-IFRS financial measures to the corresponding IFRS financial measures in our earnings press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website. With that, I will hand over to Francis.

Francis Dufay

Management

Thank you. Welcome everyone and thanks for joining us today. 2023 has been a transformative year for Jumia. Upheavals on the global stage have had a significant impact on African economies and its people. High inflation rates and currency depreciations have led to scarcity of supply and have adversely impacted the purchasing power of consumers. These have been very challenging times for tech and retail businesses across the whole continent. Against that unsettling backdrop, we embarked on a fundamental transformation of our company in order to rapidly improve our financials and establish a stronger foundation for e-commerce business. This transformation obviously came with a painful short-term impact as we discontinued activities with poor growth prospects, stopped expensive marketing practices and radically streamlined our organization. These bold and early decisions have paid off in 2023, yet we still have some way to go. We closed 2023 in a much stronger position, looking at both financials and business fundamentals. Our adjusted EBITDA loss for the full year of '23 decreased to $58.2 million versus $182.1 million in '22 and steadily improving quarter-after-quarter. Our loss before tax from continuing operations for the full year of '23 decreased to $98.6 million from $206.2 million in '22. Most importantly, we saw a reduction in the pace of the decrease of our liquidity from $227.4 million in 2022 to $106.9 million in 2023, leaving us with a liquidity position of $120.6 million at the end of 2023. Although GMV for the full year of '23 declined by 20% and orders by 22% year-over-year, we have undergone a deep transformation of the company. We believe that this transformation will enable us to achieve growth again during 2024 with improved unit economics and lower cash utilization. We believe that we can meet these goals in 2024 thanks to…

Antoine Maillet-Mezeray

Management

Thanks Francis. Hello everyone. Let's start with a review of our top line performance. Revenue breakdown. Revenue reached $59.4 million in Q4 '23, down 2% [ph] year-on-year and up 28% on a constant currency basis. Revenue from first party sales was $26.1 million, up 16% year-on-year and 44% on a constant currency basis. Marketplace revenue reached $32.9 million in Q4 '23, down 10% year-on-year and up 22% on a constant currency basis. While foreign exchange effects were a significant headwind to revenue performance, we experienced growth in commissions within our marketplace revenue and in first party sales, driven by growth in corporate sales to local and regional retailers, distributors and other corporate buyers in selected countries, primarily Egypt. Turning now to gross profits. Gross profit reached $37.1 million in Q4 '23, down 1% year-on-year and up 36% on a constant currency basis. Gross profit as a percentage of GMV reached 16% compared to 15% in Q4 '22, supported by improved margins and reduced spending on customer incentives and promotions. Let's now move to cost where we continue making significant progress. Fulfillment expense amounted to $11.7 million, down 37% year-on-year and 16% on a constant currency basis. Fulfillment expense per order, excluding JumiaPay app orders, which do not include logistics cost, decreased by 26% year-on-year from US$3.2 in Q4 '22 to US$2.3 in Q4 '23, reflecting a decrease of 2% on a constant currency basis. As a percentage of GMV fulfillment expense improved from 7.4% to 5%. This consistent improvement reaffirms the significance of our ongoing logistics transformation as we continue to build upon the success of our logistics optimization initiatives. These include a higher share of pickup station deliveries, which increased from 37% of shipped physical goods orders in Q4 '22 to 48% in Q4 '23. We persist in our…

Francis Dufay

Management

Thanks Antoine. Considering the strong progress made over the latest quarters, we are committed to reducing our losses and accelerating our progress towards cash efficiency and profitable growth. Looking at 2024 first, we aim to further reduce our cash utilization compared to 2023. Second based on the positive impact of our growth strategy, we project an increase in both orders and gross merchandise value, GMV, in 2024, excluding potential foreign exchange impact. In a nutshell, our medium-term strategy remains focused on getting to the appropriate cost base with a view to breaking even with top line growth that we can attain. Top line growth will come from building a stronger value proposition and will not happen at the expense of efficiency. We believe that our strategy is the most relevant for our markets and that consistent and quick execution is critical. More than ever, we believe that we are well positioned to capture the opportunity of e-commerce on the African continent in a profitable manner. With that, we are ready to take questions.

Operator

Operator

Okay, we will open the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] Okay, we don't appear to have any questions in the queue. I can now hand back over to Francis and Antoine for any closing comments.

Francis Dufay

Management

I think we're done. Thank you everyone for attending.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much, everybody. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation. : :