On 6 February 2018, it emerged that OLX, an African e-commerce platform, has shut down all its offices in Africa except the one in South Africa. The company, which is owned by Multinational media group and investor Naspers, has thus shutdown operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, according to a report by Nigerian Communications Week.
OLX is a global classifieds platform, which has a physical presence in nearly 40 countries.
According to a report by Innovation Village, the staff working within the offices were informed about the closure on 6 February 2018 and are expected to fully move out by the end of March 2018. OLX will reportedly still be present in these countries but will be run remotely, the Nigerian and Kenyan websites of OLX are still up and running.
Speaking to TechpointNG, Sjoerd Nikkelen, CEO of OLX in Asia, Middle East and Africa confirmed that OLX has indeed shut down physical operations in Nigeria. He, however, made no mention of Kenya or Ghana.
“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. Of course, we are committed to helping our affected colleagues during this transition and have already offered them meaningful financial and other support. As we’ve expressed to them directly, we are extremely grateful for their many significant contributions to OLX’s success,” said Nikkelen.
By Dean Workman
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