Both Jumia and Konga claim to be Africa’s biggest ecommerce platform even though they both refuse to open up their books so that we could independently verify who is actually the biggest. Then they took their competition to the marketplace by allowing merchants to sell on their platforms. Now, their eyes are fully set on payment with each of them having their own third party payment solution.
It appears as if JumiaPay and KongaPay are very similar with the later being launched before the former making a factual comparison to be slightly difficult. But based on what both companies had said and done about their respective payment product, we can begin to identify some uniqueness about both products.
Coverage
In terms of coverage, JumiaPay has the ability to reach more diverse users than KongaPay since it is not only going to be available in Nigeria but across the over twenty African countries that Jumia is operating in. Konga too would have been able to easily roll out KongaPay beyond Nigeria if had expanded elsewhere but its operations are only in Nigeria putting it in a much tighter corner with KongaPay – if it doesn’t work here, it cannot take it elsewhere.
Service array
I would have said JumiaPay wins in this space as it is able to make its payment service to serve non-ecommerce purposes as it can be used to pay utility bills and airtime top-ups. Unlike KongaPay that is only currently serving ecommerce purposes. But on Konga’s KongaPay page, they claim the service array also includes Bank transfers (with ZERO transaction fee), Airtime Purchase (MTN, Glo, Etisalat and Airtel), and TV Subscription fee payment (GOTV & DSTV)
Better for ecommerce
KongaPay wins this one – at least for now. First of all, the product is already in the market, online shoppers are warming up to it and are adopting it. The company aggressively drove adoption by offering online shoppers 5% discount off all purchases when they make payment with KongaPay. The result was that it grew adoption astronomically – at least according to Sim Shagaya who claimed it was the preferred method of payment during the last Black Friday sales.
JumiaPay which is just entering the market may have to learn from KongaPay’s playbooks to enter the market.
Legal
KongaPay also wins this category since it had been able to get its own mobile money license via its decision to acquire a payment company that has the much needed license. JumiaPay on the other hand does not have a mobile payment license yet – at least to the best of my knowledge and may need to do so except it wants to ride on MTN’s back which doesn’t seem likely since the product is being pitched as a third party service.
More likely to succeed
Both products have high chances of surviving especially in the Nigerian market which other African markets are going to be icing on the cake for JumiaPay. The payment space is further opening up with Jumia and Konga taking their unending rivalry to the sector. The one that would succeed more, for now, would be the company that can offer more incentives to its customers and it appears as JumiaPay has the ability to do this considering the fact that it has MTN and several other giants as investors. It should be much easier to roll out incentives that attract and retain customers within and beyond Nigeria.
