An excerpt From TechCabal’s weekly newsletter. Read the full issue and subscribe.
Even if it is not the earliest investor in Nigerian ecommerce, South African Naspers is definitely the most tenacious. It has not let the failure of Kalahari, the collapse of Mocality, the demise of Dealfish and the currently middling performance of PriceCheck from making even more ambitious forays into Nigeria’s thick ecommerce jungle. Naspers’ online classifieds subsidiary, OLX has acquired Schibsted’s Tradestable platform which operates in Nigeria, and is redirecting visitors to OLX.com.ng.
A consolation stake in Konga.com is not enough. Naspers is not quite ready to give up on carving a major piece of the Nigerian ecommerce pie for themselves. Maybe this time, they’ll get lucky.
In other news, I really hope this giant albatross that the Nigerian general election is comes and goes without incident, so life and business can go back to normal. Readers from around the world, wish us luck.
