Local e-commerce retailer Zando believes the listing of its holding company, Jumia, on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) will unlock e-commerce in South Africa.

The MTN-backed Jumia listed on the NYSE on Friday with stock trading at $25.46, valuing the company at more than $1.9 billion.

Jumia has become the first African technology company to list on the NYSE. The company was launched in Lagos in 2012 by Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants, along with Tunde Kehinde and Raphael Kofi Afaedor.

It then expanded to five other countries: Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Kenya and SA. In 2014, the company launched offices in Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Cameroon, Algeria and Tunisia, and it was present in 14 African countries in 2018.

The company had four million active consumers at the end of 2018.

Jumia became the first African start-up unicorn in 2016, achieving a $1 billion valuation after a $326 million funding round that included Goldman Sachs, AXA and MTN.

"The IPO of our group holding Jumia is an important milestone for us at Zando and e-commerce in South Africa," says Zando CEO Sascha Breuss.

"While we have seen tremendous growth over the past seven years already, we want to use the IPO to create momentum to promote the benefits of e-commerce for our consumers and vendors.

"Shopping online at Zando means convenient and risk-free shopping, best prices guaranteed, more than 800 brands and shopping 24/7 wherever you are. More than 88% of our consumers would recommend Zando to their family and friends, and yet, we have only seen 0.5 million South Africans shopping on our Web site. The potential here is huge and the best is yet to come," Breuss says.

"This achievement has been made possible thanks to the hard work of our teams, the trust of our consumers, as well as the commitment of our sellers and partners. All stakeholders deserve credit for this milestone, and we are just at the beginning of a long and great journey. We are going to continue to focus on our mission and to work even harder to help consumers, sellers, partners and all stakeholders benefit from this technological revolution," says Poignonnec and Hodara, co-founders and co-chief executives of Jumia.