BY ONOME AMUGE
Autochek, an automotive technology development company committed to making car ownership more accessible and affordable across Africa, has announced its acquisition of CoinAfrique, the leading platform for classified ads in French-speaking Africa, to accelerate and intensify penetration of its auto-financing services in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire other Francophone African countries.
CoinAfrique, founded in 2016 by Matthias Papet and Eric Genetre, with a large presence in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and 10 other French-speaking African countries, has grown rapidly to becoming the number one classified marketplace for Francophone Africa, enabling businesses and individuals to seamlessly buy and sell vehicles, electronics, real estate and other goods.
The CoinAfrique app, launched in May 2015, has also hit over 2 million downloads, with 800,000 monthly active users and 60,000 new ads per month, a reflection of its popularity in the Francophone Africa region.
With Francophone Africa being home to many of the fastest growing economies on the continent including Côte d’Ivoire, the fastest growing brand new car market, and Senegal, which is projected to be the fastest growing economy in Africa by 2023, Autochek is confident it is positioned to leverage CoinAfrique’s extensive database across Francophone Africa to facilitate auto financing for consumers and SMEs across this region to purchase their desired vehicles.
Based on transaction records which showed that 50 percent of the business transacted on the CoinAfrique platform takes place in the automotive category, Autochek said its acquisition will simplify the process for more French-speaking Africans to access financing and other value-added services for their vehicles.
CoinAfrique’s wider classifieds business, it explained, will continue to operate across the various product categories, with a deep integration of Autochek’s auto financing product to drive access to credit for automotive purchases.
Commenting on the acquisition, Etop Ikpe, CEO and co-founder of Autochek, said Matthias and Eric are pioneers of the classifieds model in Africa and have built an outstanding platform with many significant partnerships with car dealers, fintech platforms and other stakeholders in the Francophone automotive sector.
“They are joining the Autochek family with many years of business and infrastructure development experience across Europe and Africa and we are looking forward to leveraging their expertise to improve the automotive finance value proposition across the continent,” he added.
On his part, Matthias Papet, CEO and co-founder of CoinAfrique, expressed excitement over the opportunity to drive the penetration of auto financing across Francophone Africa and to support the wider mission across Africa.
“We see many opportunities to unlock value for users across all the categories on our platform and to expand into new countries, and we are looking forward to leveraging Autochek’s market-leading loans product and expertise to deliver more transformative experiences for our users,” he added.
Following the development, the CoinAfrique team will join Autochek and will support the mission to make car ownership more accessible and affordable across the continent.
With this acquisition, as well as the recent acquisition of Morocco’s KIFAL Auto, Autochek said it is doubling down on its Francophone focus to replicate the successes achieved so far in the English-speaking West Africa and East Africa region, as local teams are empowered to build for the nuances of their specific markets.
The Nigerian-led automotive technology firm also said it will support further integration of the pan-African automotive industry to drive shared value for consumers, manufacturers, financial institutions and other stakeholders, and enable easier access to more financing options as a catalyst for growth in Africa’s automotive industry.
