Glovo Launcher for Nigeria, Adanma Abalunam speaks on the company’s entrance into the Nigerian market, its service offerings as well as its expansion plans within the country. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:
Glovo has established its presence in Nigeria and some other African countries to explore the e-commerce market. What is your motivation and experience about the Nigerian e-commerce market?
The e-commerce sector in Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy, which is strengthened by the growing population, consumer power, and technological innovation. For Glovo, the multi-category delivery app has recognised the unique opportunity in Africa and has established its presence in Nigeria, Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire, in order to meet the rising demand for online shopping and deliveries in these markets.
Briefly tell us about Glovo, especially around the uniqueness of the app, its service delivery, and offerings for users in Nigeria?
Glovo is a pioneering multi-category delivery app and one of the world’s leading delivery platforms aimed at delivering anything to anyone in less than 45 minutes. At Glovo, we offer a variety of products and services to users by partnering with a wide range of companies, so our users can access products including food, groceries, and pharmaceutical products.
Since 2018 when Glovo entered Africa, how have people reacted out to the brand, and what progress have you recorded across the African markets?
The response to the brand has been very positive. For users, we know that reliability and short delivery times are key and we have set ourselves the target of delivering in under 45 minutes in Nigeria to keep user satisfaction high. Although we have only recently launched in Nigeria, about 40 per cent of demand is coming from areas outside of our current serving areas, so we are already looking forward to expanding to those areas and bringing our service to even more users.
With a strong presence in 23 countries, what essentially drives Glovo’s market expansion strategy globally and Africa in particular?
Our market expansion strategy is driven by our belief that there is a lot of untapped potential in the e-commerce space across African countries. This is especially true in Africa, where smartphone penetration is projected to double between 2020 and 2025 and then grow from there. We select markets where we see that not only is there unserviced demand but where there is also huge potential to grow.
As the largest city in Africa, in terms of population size, how does Glovo plan to leverage the thriving delivery market in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic and commercial hub?
The delivery market is growing as companies and entrepreneurs observe the challenges of congestion in Lagos. Glovo is partnering with dynamic, fast-growing companies such as Rapiid GMC Logistics, to build our fleet and meet the growing demand within Nigeria so that we can expand our service area.
What are the prospects for the growth of Glovo’s business in Nigeria and what plans are there for expansion into other cities across the country?
We see great growth prospects in Nigeria, and our current user base is growing above 50 per cent week over week. Less than a month since the launch, we are operating in relatively small areas on the mainland in Ikeja, Yaba, and Surulere and on the Island between Lagos Island and Lekki 4th roundabout. We are seeing incredible demand with 40 per cent of our users downloading the app outside those areas, so the immediate priority is to optimise the platform for those in our service area and expand the service area to meet the demands of new customers. We are discussing where we might expand to next, and expect Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Ibadan to be our next cities, but these decisions will be informed by trends in demand for our services and the commercial and regulatory conditions in new Nigerian markets.
With the company’s recent closure of its Series F funding round, which raised €450m. What is Glovo’s plan around investing in Nigerians and Nigerian businesses as the company begins operations in the country?
This current round of investments has driven us to double down on our expansion plans. In addition to Nigeria, we are currently launching other countries, such as Tunisia, and expanding to new cities in existing countries. Also, to fulfill our social impact goals, we are building partnerships with NGOs and nonprofits whose development aims we can help to facilitate with our service.
How is Glovo leveraging digital solutions and technology to meet the rapid demand for online grocery shopping and deliveries?
Right now users can access restaurants and drink stores on the app. Because we know that demand for online groceries shopping is also growing, we are pursuing partnerships with reliable and well-known supermarket brands to meet this current demand. One of the things that have helped Glovo is our speed, attention to detail, and focus on execution. We optimise our technology to ensure that our service is hyper-local and in-keeping with the lifestyles of our users. In Kenya for instance, this led us to integrate with MPesa, which is 96 per cent of households use. In Nigeria, we are working with Paystack to capitalise on the popularity of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) bank-to-bank transfers.
What measures have Glovo put in place to protect courier riders and how often are riders trained on the job?
We work with courier companies through proven and trusted partners such as Rapiid GMC Logistics. We ensure that they receive comprehensive training on road safety and acquire all the credentials and licensing required to deliver through our platform safely. However, in the unfortunate event of an accident while on duty, our riders are covered by our global insurance policy.
How do you intend to maximise local partnerships for reliable and efficient service delivery?
Africa represents a massive opportunity not only in terms of delivery but also digitalisation. Because Glovo aims to have a presence in every part of the city, for instance, working with the many small restaurants that exist in Nigeria and partnership, is extremely important to us.
What areas are you focused on making investments in Nigeria and how impactful will these investments be in boosting the local market?
Currently, we are primarily invested in building relationships with a broad base of restaurant and retail partners and attracting motivated fleets. In Africa, customers have spent more than EUR 120 million in our partner stores on the Glovo app. This should give an idea of the growth we offer to partners on our platform. It will be no different in Nigeria where we have signed almost 500 partners in just three months and we are witnessing healthy growth in demand for their offering through our platform.
From a technical point of view, how reliable is your platform, what is your delivery time frame and how do you plan to ensure efficiency in a busy city like Lagos?
We aim to perform deliveries in under 45 minutes in Nigeria. Since our launch in July, we have consistently improved our operations to deliver this experience to most of our users. We know our current delivery times are on par with average delivery times in the market, but as we learn more about the city’s dynamics, we are confident that we will become the leader for delivery times.
Briefly share with us what your sustainability plan is and how you plan on implementing it in Nigeria?
We are promoting a program called GlovoAccess, which aims to provide free logistics support to NGOs in need. So, we invite NGOs to contact us so we can begin to explore local opportunities together.
In terms of the future outlook for Glovo, where do you see the brand in the next few years, in relation to expansion around business offerings?
Over the long-term, our goals for Africa mirror our goals elsewhere: to grow Glovo and give everyone easy access to everything in their city. We still have a lot of work to do, and we are just getting started. We are also going to continue to build the app to be the go-to platform for e-groceries and for brands wishing to engage with their customers. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) and other brands are already beginning to see Glovo as a key tool for engaging with and selling to customers and we expect this type of use for the platform to become standard practice for a wide range of brands over the next 12 months.
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