Uzum, a leading ecosystem of digital services in Uzbekistan, today announces its key performance highlights for the six months ended 30 June 2024.

Key Operating and Financial Highlights

·   Marketplace GMV grew 4 times year-on-year

·   Loan portfolio of Uzum fintech services more than doubled

·   Every third resident of Uzbekistan uses Uzum services

·   Uzum is currently preparing to launch a Series B funding round in Q4 2024 or Q1 2025 and seeks to raise up to $300 million to fund the further development of its BNPL business, online lending products, and its e-commerce vertical.

The Uzum ecosystem delivered strong growth during 1H 2024, with consolidated net income increasing by 50% year-on-year on the back of the rapid development of its e-commerce and fintech services. The combined audience of the ecosystem nearly doubled year-on-year and reached 10.6 million active users per month, or approximately 30% of Uzbekistan’s population.

Nikolay Seleznev, Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer at Uzum, commented:

“We are proud of the solid results that Uzum delivered during the first half of this year and are grateful to our investors, partners, and customers for believing in our mission as we work to unlock the full potential of e-commerce and fintech in Uzbekistan. For the second half of 2024, we will lay the groundwork for the roll-out of the Uzum Bank card as well as our online lending and deposit business. At the end of this year or early next year, we plan to attract further funding to accelerate growth in the promising market of Uzbekistan. To that end, we are targeting large international funds, which would be instrumental in a subsequent prospective listing on an international stock exchange in the medium term.”

E-commerce

Uzum’s e-commerce unit posted a nearly fourfold increase in GMV, as the online marketplace Uzum Market further solidified its position as the country’s e-commerce champion. The marketplace’s GMV grew 3.5-fold year-on-year, while the number of orders processed by the marketplace in 1H 2024 grew more than threefold year-on-year and totaled more than 8 million, with more than 10,000 sellers now operating on the platform. Looking ahead, the Company is on track to commission the first phase of the largest warehousing complex in Uzbekistan (77,000 sqm) by year-end to service the further expansion of Uzum Market.

During this period, the online food delivery service Uzum Tezkor became a significant contributor to Uzum’s e-commerce business. In just over a year of its operation, Uzum Tezkor has become the largest domestic delivery service by geographic reach, covering the eight largest cities in the country. The service continues to onboard new restaurants to offer customers a growing range of delivery options, with 1,690 restaurants operating on the platform by the end of the period.

Fintech

The Company continued to focus on profitability and product development for its fintech businesses, notably the digital Uzum Bank and the Uzum Nasiya installment payment service. During this quarter, the Bank launched pre-order branded Visa virtual cards with attractive terms for Uzbek consumers and is planning an active roll-out of online lending products over the next 12-18 months, as the business undergoes a strategic transformation into a full-blown neobank with a full suite of daily banking services.

Uzum Nasiya, a convenient installment service for everyday needs, posted a TFV 2.5-fold increase year-on-year while its loan portfolio more than doubled. The number of users with approved limits amounted to 2.8 million at the end of Q2 2024, an increase of 27% from Q1 2024. The service also showed strong synergy with the Uzum’s online marketplace, with more than 55% of orders on Uzum Market paid via Nasiya’s BNPL solution during this quarter.

In spring 2024, Uzum reached a valuation of over $1 billion and became the first tech unicorn in Uzbekistan, placing the country among the world’s most dynamic and high-opportunity markets for the development of e-commerce and fintech services. The Company is laying the technological foundation for the digitization of Uzbekistan’s economy and aims to continue its pace of growth by actively developing its own physical and IT infrastructure, as well as seamlessly integrating its services throughout the Uzum ecosystem.