It was expected and it has finally happened. Looking at the Classifieds ads landscape in Africa, this was the only way Carey Eaton could take on the likes of General Classifieds sites like Naspers’s OLX, Schibsted’s Tradestable, Ringier’s Pigiame, Google’s GoogleTrader and Junkmail.
Carey Eaton (founder of Cheki Africa Media ) and Justin Clarke (founder of Private Property Holdings) have joined forces to create “Africa’s largest online classifieds group by traffic, page views, ad volume and revenue.”
The merged entity is called One Africa Media and has 3 main shareholders namely Carey Eaton, Justin Clarke and U.S based investment firm, Tiger Global Management.
Carey is responsible for bringing in Brighter Monday (Jobs Classifieds), Jobberman (Jobs Classifieds) Cheki (Autos Classifieds) while Justin is responsible for bringing in PrivateProperty – property classifieds and SafariNow (Travel, Accommodation)
In Carey’s interview with AIMGroup, he claims “We are winning against the big international players, because we have local capabilities. We are building our local skills in three hubs, namely Durban, Nairobi and Lagos.” He expects cost-savings (e.g. all businesses in Kenya share the same office space), and leveraging of growth opportunities (alliances with big sites, own advertising network) to accrue as benefits from the merger.
Interestingly, Carey talked about One Africa Media having its own advertising network in place soon. “With the help of Google, we got the technology in place, and are now looking for ad agencies outside africa interested in marketing global brands to the huge and growing consumer marketing Africa,” said Eaton.
Eaton works out of Nairobi, Kenya, and is responsible for Sub-Saharan Africa while Clarke is based in Durban, South Africa, and is responsible for South Africa.
