Following a successful Category A funding round in March 2024, Uzum became the first fintech unicorn in Uzbekistan with a market capitalization of over USD 1 billion. This week it announces financial and operational results for the first half of FY2024 and the results speak for themselves as it prepares for category B funding.
The Uzum ecosystem achieved strong growth during the first half of 2024, with consolidated net income up 50% year-on-year driven by the rapid development of e-commerce and financial services. Collectively, the number of active users in the company’s ecosystem nearly doubled year-on-year, reaching 10.6 million monthly users, nearly 30% of the Uzbekistan’s population.
Commenting on the strong half-quarterly results, Uzum BD Manager Nikolay Seleznev says that the focus is on closing out a strong fourth quarter.
“We are proud of the results and thank our investors, partners and customers for their confidence in our vision. During the second half of 2024, we will lay the foundation for the launch of the Uzum Bank Card in addition to our online lending and deposit business. At the end of this year we plan to attract more funding to accelerate growth in the promising Uzbek market. To this end, we are targeting major international investment funds, which will be a key factor in the company’s potential listing on a global stock exchange in the medium term,” says Seleznev.
Uzum’s e-commerce unit has achieved nearly 4-fold growth in the value of goods for sale (GMV), as the Uzum Market has further strengthened its position as the leading e-commerce marketplace in the country. The value of goods for sale GMV on the platform grew by 3.5 times year-on-year, while the number of orders processed via the platform in the first half of 2024 more than tripled on the platform. year-on-year to more than 8 million orders, with more than 10,000 vendors now operating on the platform.
The company is on track to open the first phase of the largest storage complex in the Uzbekistan (77,000 square metres) by the end of this year to serve the continued expansion of the Uzum Market.
During this period, its online food delivery service Uzum Tezkor has become a major contributor to the e-commerce business of the Uzum platform. Within more than a year of operation, Uzum Tezkor has become the largest domestic food delivery service in terms of geographical coverage, covering the country’s eight largest cities.
The service continues to add new restaurants to provide an increasing range of delivery options to customers, with the number of restaurants operating on the platform reaching 1,690 by the end of the period.
The company also continued to focus on profitability and product development for its financial business, notably Digital Bank Uzum Bank and Uzum Nasiya installment payment service. This quarter, the bank launched Visa-branded virtual prepaid cards with attractive discounts for consumers in Uzbekistan, and plans to launch a range of online lending products over the next 12 to 18 months, as the business undergoes a strategic transformation into a full-service digital bank offering a range of Full of daily banking.
Uzum Nasiya, a convenient installment service for daily needs, achieved a 2.5-fold year-on-year increase in the total value of TFV financing , while its loan portfolio more than doubled. The number of users whose spending limits were approved reached 2.8 million at the end of the second quarter of 2024, an increase of 27% over the first quarter of 2024. The service also showed strong synergies with the Uzum online marketplace, where more than 55% of orders on the Uzum Market were paid through Nasiya’s BNPL postpaid solution during the quarter.
Uzum achieved a market capitalization of more than one billion US dollars in the spring of 2024, becoming the first fintech unicorn in Uzbekistan, placing the country among the world’s most dynamic and promising markets for e-commerce development and fintech services.
The company is working to lay the technological foundation for the digitization of the Uzbek economy and aims to continue its pace of growth by developing its own physical infrastructure as well as its IT infrastructure., as well as seamlessly integrating its services throughout the Uzum ecosystem.
Key Takeaways:
• The value of goods for sale GMV on the platform increased by 4 times year-on-year.
• The size of Uzum’s loan portfolio has more than doubled.
• One in three people in Uzbekistan use Uzum services.
• Uzum is currently poised to launch a Category B funding round in the fourth quarter of 2024 or the first quarter of 2025, seeking to raise up to USD 300 million to fund the development of its BNPL business, online lending products, and e-commerce services.
