Kaymu is Merging into Daraz

Rocket Internet is currently undergoing through a major reshuffle at its offices across Asia and Africa. Yesterday the group announced that its brands across Africa are going to merge into a single brand name called Jumia.

Just moments ago, it surfaced that Kaymu and Daraz are merging in Asia, except in Bangladesh and Pakistan where both companies will continue to operate under their current brand names.

The news is that operations will be merged and managed by one centralized team under same roof in Karachi.

“Daraz and Kaymu have agreed to join forces. Both platforms will remain active with their current brand names, but the new entity, Daraz Group, will integrate the operations under one roof”, said Bjarke Mikkelsen, co-CEO Daraz Group, while speaking with ProPakistani.

Bjarke said that both Daraz and Kaymu have built successful operations in their respective markets.

He emphasized that Kaymu will continue to remain an open market where smaller vendors come and sell their products to comparatively wider audience, while Daraz will serve as a premium place for more established brands and companies.

“However, we are going to implement better and enhanced rating systems for Kaymu so that vendors are automatically penalized for under-performing “, maintained CEO Daraz.

He agreed that both Daraz and Kaymu could be merged into one, like elsewhere in Asia, but both companies are worlds apart when it comes to reputation and performance.

Daraz CEO wasn’t sure if Kaymu is destined to hit the quits and ultimately merge into Daraz, but said that it could be one of the possible outcomes down the line.

While experts are calling the move right-sizing, there are others who think that Rocket Internet is shifting its focus on better-performing brands while scrapping the ones that weren’t doing as well.

There’s been currently no word on lay-offs but since operations are merging we can expect some hiccups down the line.