The Competition Commission has approved the merger of Kalahari and Takealot, two of South Africa’s leading online retailers.
takealot.com’s founder and co-CEO Kim Reid comments: “We are super excited about the approval of the transaction. This will allow us to build a significant retail entity in South Africa, one that continues to be truly customer focused.”
Currently the retail market for consumer goods in South Africa is approximately R800billion, of which less than 2% is online. Worldwide online retail as a percentage of total retail is growing. China has an online retail market share of 10%, whilst in the US and the UK it is already approaching 15%.
With the merger of the two businesses a single platform of scale is created to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities in online retail in South Africa.
This is a necessary step in the evolution of online retail in South Africa and exciting news. The South African e-tail market is a highly dynamic one, and we foresee significant growth in the future,” says Oliver Rippel, senior executive responsible for Kalahari.
The newly-formed e-commerce market leader will eventually trade under the takealot.com brand, using Takealot’s platform and technology, led by Takealot’s existing co-CEO’s Kim Reid and Willem van Biljon.
For now, existing customers of both sites will continue to shop as usual on the respective sites.
