Kilimall: Innovation and development of African e-commerce platforms

Kilimall is an e-commerce platform founded in Kenya in 2014 by former Huawei executives. The name is inspired by Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, implying that Kilimall’s goal is to become Africa’s premier e-commerce platform. In order to solve the challenges faced by Africa in making online payments, Kilimall’s founders used their professional experience as a secure payment gateway at Huawei to enter into technical payments and are committed to building a fully closed-loop e-commerce that combines self-built payment systems and logistics systems. ecology. This system effectively solves the two core pain points of African e-commerce, namely how goods are transported across borders and how funds are safely transferred.

As of the beginning of 2019, the number of registered buyers of Kilimall has exceeded 10 million, the average daily active users exceed 1.5 million, the repurchase rate reaches 40%, and the unit price per customer is approximately US$25. Although this achievement stems from the entrepreneurial efforts of Chinese companies, Kilimall adopted a localized development strategy in order to adapt to the local market. It was not until 2018 that it officially began to invite Chinese sellers to settle in. At present, there are only more than 4,000 Chinese sellers on the platform, and the products they supply are still relatively limited, which is far from meeting the rapidly growing consumer demand in the market. Therefore, early sellers will enjoy greater development potential on the platform.

As of mid-2019, Kilimall has opened three main sites to Chinese sellers, namely Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. Both individual and corporate users can apply to join this platform. The development of Kilimall has promoted the e-commerce ecosystem in Africa to a certain extent, marking the continued progress and deepening of the digital economy on this continent.