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Lagos-headquartered classifieds marketplace Jiji has acquired Bikroy, Bangladesh’s largest online classifieds platform, marking the company’s first acquisition outside Africa and signaling a major step in its global expansion strategy.
Although the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, Jiji CEO Anton Volianskyi confirmed that the acquisition was financed through internal resources and shareholder support.
The deal comes just thirteen months after Jiji entered Bangladesh as a direct competitor to Bikroy, illustrating a strategy the company has repeatedly used across African markets: enter aggressively, build operational scale, compete with incumbents, and ultimately consolidate the market through acquisition.
The acquisition also deepens Jiji’s relationship with Sweden-based Saltside Technologies, the owner of Bikroy. In 2022, Jiji acquired Tonaton, Saltside’s Ghanaian marketplace platform, after years of competing in the same market.
With Bikroy now under its control, Jiji has completed its third major competitor acquisition in six years, reinforcing its ambition to become a dominant classifieds marketplace operator across emerging markets.
Jiji’s “Compete Then Acquire” Strategy Continues to Deliver
Jiji’s acquisition history reveals a clear and deliberate expansion model.
In 2019, the company acquired OLX Africa’s operations in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania after years of intense competition with the Naspers-backed classifieds giant. That transaction dramatically increased Jiji’s scale, pushing its monthly audience above eight million users and cementing its position as one of Africa’s largest digital marketplace platforms.
The company followed that strategy again in Ghana with the acquisition of Tonaton in 2022.
According to Volianskyi, the company intentionally enters markets organically before deciding whether acquisition or independent growth offers the fastest route to category leadership.
Rather than relying purely on mergers and acquisitions, Jiji first validates market demand, builds local operational presence, and pressures incumbents competitively before exploring consolidation opportunities.
That approach appears to have shaped its Bangladesh expansion.
When Jiji launched its Bangladesh operations in March 2025 through the domain jiji-bd.com, the company positioned itself as a challenger to existing platforms including Bikroy, Daraz, and Ajkerdeal.
Just over a year later, the company has effectively absorbed the country’s largest classifieds platform.
Volianskyi described the move as a “calculated, deliberately phased approach,” noting that Jiji used its market entry to test operational capabilities, establish local presence, and evaluate long-term opportunities in the South Asian market.
Why Bangladesh Became Attractive for Jiji
Jiji’s move into Bangladesh represents a significant strategic shift for a company previously focused almost entirely on Africa.
As recently as 2021, Jiji executives suggested that Africa’s classifieds market had already reached a high level of consolidation, leaving limited room for additional acquisitions on the continent.
The expansion into Bangladesh suggests the company is now looking beyond Africa for future growth opportunities as acquisition targets within its core markets become increasingly scarce.
Bangladesh offers several structural advantages that closely resemble the dynamics that fueled Jiji’s growth across African economies.
The country has a rapidly expanding internet population, growing smartphone penetration, and increasing consumer comfort with digital commerce platforms.
According to industry estimates cited by Jiji, Bangladesh’s e-commerce market could reach between $12 billion and $13 billion between 2027 and 2029.
The country also reportedly has more than 131 million internet users within a population of approximately 170 million people, creating one of the largest digitally connected consumer markets in South Asia.
These conditions mirror the demographic and digital adoption patterns that enabled Jiji to scale aggressively in markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana.
For Jiji, Bangladesh presents an opportunity to replicate its African marketplace model in another fast-growing emerging economy.
Jiji’s Growth Metrics Show Increasing Scale
The Bikroy acquisition also highlights how rapidly Jiji itself has expanded over the last several years.
In late 2024, the company disclosed that it hosted more than six million active listings worth over $10 billion and facilitated annual transaction volumes estimated between $10 billion and $20 billion.
At the time, the platform attracted approximately 12 million monthly unique visitors across eight African markets, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire.
The latest figures shared by the company indicate substantially larger scale.
Jiji now says it serves more than 90 million annual users and processes roughly $70 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) across its platform ecosystem.
The company also claims leadership positions in six core African markets.
While marketplace GMV figures often represent total transaction activity rather than direct company revenue, the numbers suggest that Jiji has evolved into one of the most influential digital commerce infrastructure players operating across emerging markets.
What the Bikroy Acquisition Means for Bangladesh’s E-Commerce Sector
Despite the acquisition, Jiji says the Bikroy brand will remain active.
According to the company, preserving Bikroy’s existing brand equity is a central part of the investment thesis.
Founded in 2012, Bikroy has become one of Bangladesh’s most recognized digital marketplace brands.
The platform reportedly surpassed 10 million app downloads and currently serves more than 400,000 monthly buyers alongside over 100,000 monthly sellers.
Jiji also estimates that Bikroy processes over $3 billion in annual GMV while attracting roughly three million monthly unique visitors.
Much of that activity comes from high-value verticals such as real estate and automotive listings, categories that have historically generated strong monetization opportunities for Jiji across African markets.
Rather than replacing Bikroy, Jiji plans to integrate the platform into its existing marketplace infrastructure.
The acquisition will bring several operational changes.
Bikroy will migrate onto Jiji’s technology stack, which the company says is optimized for small businesses and professional merchants.
The monetization model will also evolve.
Instead of relying primarily on fixed listing fees, sellers will increasingly bid for visibility within the marketplace and pay on a cost-per-click basis.
Under the system, merchants will control their own advertising budgets and bidding levels, a model similar to performance-driven digital advertising platforms.
Jiji also plans to increase marketing investments to drive higher traffic volumes to the platform.
The company believes increased buyer traffic creates stronger incentives for sellers to spend more on promotional visibility, a strategy that has supported monetization growth in several African markets.
Seller packages are also expected to become more sophisticated, ranging from individual merchant plans to enterprise-level offerings with integrated promotional tools.
Meanwhile, Bikroy’s local workforce—including teams across customer support, sales, operations, finance, and marketing—will continue operating under a locally incorporated subsidiary owned by the Jiji Group.
Competition in Bangladesh’s Digital Commerce Market Intensifies
The acquisition significantly reshapes competition within Bangladesh’s digital commerce ecosystem.
With Bikroy folded into Jiji’s operations, one of the company’s biggest remaining competitors becomes Daraz, the Alibaba-backed e-commerce giant with a broad regional footprint.
Daraz operates a substantially different model from Jiji’s classifieds-focused marketplace business, but the overlap in consumer commerce categories creates inevitable competitive pressure.
Jiji may also face indirect competition from other Chinese-backed commerce platforms expanding aggressively across emerging markets.
In Africa, for example, the company already operates in an environment where platforms such as Temu have intensified competition in digital retail and online consumer acquisition.
Bangladesh’s rapidly digitizing economy makes the market increasingly attractive to international commerce operators seeking long-term growth opportunities.
As digital payment adoption rises and internet penetration deepens, marketplace platforms are racing to establish dominant positions before the market matures further.
For Jiji, acquiring Bikroy provides immediate access to a recognized local brand, an existing seller network, and a large user base without the longer timeline typically required to scale organically.
Why This Deal Matters for African Technology Companies
Jiji’s expansion into Bangladesh is notable not only because of the acquisition itself, but because it reflects a broader trend among African technology companies beginning to pursue international growth beyond the continent.
Historically, most African startups focused almost exclusively on solving domestic or regional market challenges.
However, a growing number of mature African technology firms are now exploring opportunities in other emerging markets where similar infrastructure gaps, digital adoption patterns, and consumer behaviors exist.
Jiji’s Bangladesh strategy demonstrates how operational playbooks developed in African markets can potentially be exported internationally.
The company’s expertise in classifieds monetization, seller acquisition, marketplace liquidity, and mobile-first commerce may prove transferable across multiple emerging economies.
If successful, the move could encourage other African startups to explore expansion opportunities in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
