Kilimall is the second largest e-commerce platform in Africa. It was founded in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, by former Huawei employees in 2014. It has opened three sites in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. As of May 2019, the number of registered users on the Kilimall platform has reached more than 10 million, and the number of app downloads has reached 5 million.
The style of the Kilimall website is relatively young, and the target customer group is mostly young people aged 20 to 30. 3C, fashion, home furnishings, small appliances and maternal and child products are the hot-selling categories of the platform.
Kilimall’s success story is very motivating for e-commerce entrepreneurs in Africa. In 2012, Yang Tao, the founder of Kilimall, was sent to Africa as a Huawei employee to help local operators build a mobile wallet system. During the two years he lived in Africa, Yang Tao was always affected by various shopping inconveniences, either because of the small number of choices or the high prices. The price of the same product in China and Africa may differ by 3 to 10 times. After living in such an environment for two years, Yang Tao saw not only the hardships of life in Africa, but also the business opportunities in the African e-commerce market. In 2014, Yang Tao resigned from Huawei and founded Kilimall. He summarized his many years of payment gateway experience and the successful model of domestic e-commerce and successfully built his own payment system and logistics system. Only one year after the platform was launched, it became one of the top e-commerce platforms in Africa and a very strong competitor of Jumia.