Real Reasons OLX is Shutting Down its Operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya

One of Nigeria’s most popular online services is closing up its shop. Naspers, owners of OLX, wants it to shut down operations in all African countries except South Africa.

This decision means OLX is done with its operations in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.

According to reports by Innovation Village, its staff in these countries were formally informed on Tuesday, and physical operations are expected to end in March 2018. But another report by Business Insider SA states that the company would run remotely instead.

The company’s CEO in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Mr Sjoerd Nikkelen, confirmed both reports.

We made a difficult but important decision in Nigeria to consolidate our operations between some of our offices internationally. Our marketplace will continue to operate here — uninterrupted — as it has since 2010, and we remain committed to the many people here who use our platform to buy and sell every month. We continue to be focused on constantly innovating to make sure that OLX remains the top classifieds platform in the country.

OLX is a classifieds listing website. It has a presence in over 30 countries and began operations in Nigeria in 2012. It had been the major player in the Nigerian market until competition from Jiji.ng became fierce.

OLX goes the way of Efritin

OLX’s shutdown is similar to the shutdown of another popular classified website: Efritin.com. Efritin shutdown its operations in Nigeria in 2017. Neil Hammar, CEO of Saltside, the owners of Efritin, said it closed shop because they didn’t get desired returns on our investment. They decided to scale back on investments in Nigeria which meant they were forced to let many people leave the company.

Konga is another e-commerce giant that was has struggled to stay afloat. Zinox group took possession of Konga recently after months of negotiations. According to some sources, Konga was sold for just $10 million, which is a significant loss in value from its previous valuation two years prior to about $100 million.