Hello <<First Name>>,
 

Usually, our newsletters go out on Saturday morning but today or rather this week, the universe -- led by Internet service providers (ISPs) -- decided to work against us, that’s why it’s coming in the evening. Sorry for the delay, we hope this is the first and last time it would happen. 

And talking about last times, today’s also the last time we’d see a February 29th until 2024. 
 

Now, The Stories for the Week.

Health

Coronavirus is finally in Nigeria

The novel coronavirus is now affecting every continent but Antarctica. In Africa, only 3 countries -- Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria -- have been affected. In each country, only one case has been identified, although the first and only person to have coronavirus in Egypt is on his way to recovery and no longer carries the virus.

Phew! So there’s hope?

Yes, more people are recovering from being infected by Coronavirus, in fact way more people than are dying. Here’s a look at the numbers as at mid-day of these two days.

Source

When are we gonna have a cure?

Soon. While people are recovering in the absence of a dedicated solution. There are two camps working on solutions: those working on vaccines (long terms) and those working on antivirals(short-term).

Vaccines: Utilizing millions of dollars’ worth of grants, several biotech and universities have begun working on potential Vaccines. Clinical tests are to start by April and span over a year.

Antivirals: Several existing antivirals and steroids are also undergoing clinical trials to test their effectiveness against the novel virus. This could be a quicker solution with remdesivir being the most promising drug. 

Dig Deeper: Follow this Dashboard that shows a real-time update on the spread of COVID-19

E-Commerce

How the “Amazon of Africa” performed in 2019

@Techcrunch

African e-commerce giant, Jumia released its financial statement for the final quarter of 2019. Let’s run through the key stats.

Key Metrics

Gross Merchandise Value: GMV in e-commerce indicates the total sales value for merchandise sold within a certain time frame. For Jumia, it was $1.19 billion in 2019, up from $898.6 million recorded in 2018. 

Revenue:  Its revenue for 2019 grew to $174.66 million up from $140.52 million in 2018. 

Losses: The online retailer lost $247.95 million, a 34% increase over the previous year. 

Total customers: 500,000 new customers were added between October and December 2019. Currently has 6.1 million active customers in total.

But that’s only a part of the story

Let's take you back. During its IPO in May 2019, Jumia’s stock price climbed as high as $49.77 after hitting the market at $14.50 per share. Weeks after this, a publication by Citron Research claimed that the company's IPO prospectus had misrepresented in its GMV and the rate at which orders were cancelled or returned. This knocked down the company’s share price and brought about many questions about inflated sales figures within Jumia.

Looking into the future

While Jumia Pay appears to be the next revenue growth lever for Jumia, its core business still suffers from challenges such as bad roads, poor formal address system and low adoption of internet retailing, and its impact is felt through high logistical costs and product returns. There is a lot of worry for investors and its shareholders and rightly so. The fact remains that Jumia’s ill fortunes might only be turned around through significant economic growth in its operating markets.

Renewable Energy

Where people aren't putting their money
 

Retail
 

The Company that makes the tags on your clothes is worth fortunes

Have you ever thought about who made the tags on your clothes or how much they were worth? We doubt that. 
 

Well, SML Group, a Hong Kong-based company that produces tags for top fashion brands and retail clothing brands in the market is worth about 500 million US dollars. 

This discovery comes at the verge of sales

The label maker is reportedly up for sale and a couple of private equity buyers are bidding for it for a whopping amount of 400 million to 500 million US dollars, which is an indicator that the label company is really valuable. 

How did they get so big by just making Labels?

SML started their business in a warehouse in China as a woven label production company in 1985 and in 1997, they entered the US market then eventually expanded to Europe, Central America, South Asia and India and ventured into other forms of product labelling like software systems, printed labels, buttons and Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFID)

Those tags might just be as important as the product

Tags might seem like just ordinary packaging tools but they are very useful in different ways. They are most significant when it comes to product sales and management. For example, The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags consist of radio transponders that allow for products to be easily recovered when they are moved out of their targeted areas.

Other types of product labelling like Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS), offers maximum product protection and can help to prevent shoplifting. Anti-counterfeit technology that guarantees that all your products are safely connected to all supply chains.

In a nutshell 

These tag makers are rapidly expanding and becoming even more profitable as different fashion brands emerge. Business analysis reports that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags is the largest product in the RFID market with an estimated growth of about US$17billion in 2024, from US$8.2billion in 2018.

Next time you check the tag on a clothing item, remember someone’s making a killing just from producing that.

Worth Reading 📚

• Seven-Up’s ugly fight for market share in Nigeria

• Maybe it’s not a coincedence you’ve never seen a bad guy in a movie using an iPhone

• What Market Women Teach Us About Prices

Quote 💭

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

– Marian Anderson (an American singer of classical music)

Written by Daniel Adeyemi, Bright Azuh and Damilola Amusan.

How did you feel about this newsletter?

                                      Hate it             Meh          Love it