Jumia CEO Francis Dufay says President Donald Trump's trade war is indirectly benefitting Africa's biggest e-commerce company, as it's gaining additional access to Chinese goods. He spoke to Bloomberg's Jennifer Zabasajja in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg

Donald Trump has signed an order to impose tariffs imports into the U.S. from countries including China, Mexico and Canada.

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African e-commerce companies report that recent restructuring and a focus on the middle class are yielding positive results. Improved macroeconomic conditions, including reduced currency volatility and inflation, have made it easier for suppliers to import goods and for consumers to regain confidence. 

Additionally, the trade war between China and the U.S. is indirectly benefiting African markets. Chinese manufacturers, seeking to rebalance their exports, are increasing shipments to Africa, resulting in a healthier supply pipeline and greater participation from Chinese vendors in African e-commerce platforms.

Why a trade war may benefit African consumers

We've done most of the restructuring on the cost base, refocusing the business on e-commerce, which was absolutely necessary. And now we're seeing the impact of all the work done over the past three years to build the right business model for the true African middle class. And guess what? It's working. As simple as that. So the hard work has mostly been done. The results are coming. And we're also helped by slightly better macroeconomic situation in this process. Describe that a little bit for us. Which part? The macroeconomic situation, because many people would look at it as more complicated right now. Well, to us, it's much better. I mean, it's never perfect. But the past three, four years for Africa and for African consumers have been really, really tough. In the nine countries where we're operating, huge currency volatility, huge pressure on consumers, high inflation. We had countries with like 50% inflation. And all that didn't help for us as online retailers. It means that suppliers were not importing goods from Asia or anywhere because they could not commit the cash because they had no idea of currency volatility in the next six months. It means that Asian manufacturers were not sending goods to Africa because, well, they were scared of the situation. And we just could not really do our job at scale. When we lack supply and customers lack confidence, it made things really complicated. And that happened in the midst of all the restructuring as well. So we had all at the same time, to put it this way. What we're seeing now is that with currency stability, it's massively improving our situation because we have goods to sell. Supply is becoming much easier. Chinese manufacturers are shipping a lot more to Africa. Consumers are starting to regain some level of confidence, some. It's not perfect, but it's better. And cherry on the cake, the whole trade war between China and the U.S. is also helping us to secure more supply for Africa as Chinese manufacturers will have to rebalance the markets. Have you seen that in the numbers? Have you seen a shift already being beneficial, the trade war benefiting the company? Indirectly, yes. So we see that our pipeline of goods from China is getting healthier and healthier. We see that we have a lot more interest from Chinese suppliers and vendors. We were in onboarding events for Chinese vendors in China. We have a team in Shenzhen. We now have more participants than we have chairs available. So we're really seeing a shift and it's really making our lives much easier.

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Why a trade war may benefit African consumers

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