February 8 (SeeNews) - Naspers Classifieds Bulgaria, the operator of e-commerce platform OLX Bulgaria, expects its revenue to rise in the double digits in 2017, the company's CEO told SeeNews on Thursday.
"In 2016 we generated double-digit growth compared to the previous year and we expect the same for 2017," Kamen Yankulov said in response to a SeeNews question on the sidelines of a news conference in Sofia.
In 2016, Naspers Classifieds Bulgaria posted a 46.8% growth in operating revenue, to 5.35 million levs ($3.3 million/2.7 million euro), according to its annual financial report filed with the commercial register. The company managed to narrow its net loss to 47,000 levs in 2016, compared to 913,000 levs a year earlier.
The volume of the company's 2017 revenue and profit will be made public once Naspers Classifieds Bulgaria has the final figures, Yankulov told SeeNews.
The OLX.bg platform's active users increased by an annual 7% in 2017, with mobile users up by a quarter, Yankulov said during the news conference. The platform released a new mobile version last year, he added. Users of the platform posted some 2.4 million ads from mobile devices in 2017.
OLX.bg was the third most visited website in 2017, while the platform's mobile app was the most downloaded in its category in Bulgaria in both Google Play and Apple's app stores, according to Yankulov.
There were 300,000 newly registered users in 2017, bringing the total registrations to 2.3 million. The number of corporate users on the platform tripled in 2017.
The cars and car parts category attracted the highest interest on the OLX platform in 2017, surpassing the electronics and mobile phones category, which topped the list in 2016. In Sofia alone, demand for cars soared by an annual 40%, Yankulov said.
On the mobile phones segment, iPhone was the most desired brand on OLX, followed by Samsung.
Auto accessories and navigation systems ranked third in terms of demand in 2017, followed by computer parts and sports goods, placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
In terms of most offered products, the fashion and beauty category came first, followed by products for kids and babies. Electronics and home appliances were the third most offered category in 2017, falling one place compared to 2016.
In order to comply with legal requirements, the company last year banned certain products from trading on its platform and extended the list of exotic and protected animals which are forbidden from trade.
The ban included tobacco and tobacco-related products.
However, the ban does not concern hookahs, unless the offer is paired with tobacco, Yankulov told SeeNews. Hookahs, which were in high demand on the platform last year, are still not very well regulated, although this is expected to change soon, Yankulov added.
Other banned products include prepaid SIM cards, alcohol without excise stamps and accounts on video game platforms.
Naspers Classifieds Bulgaria is part of the OLX Group, which is present in over 40 markets worldwide. OLG Group became part of multinational internet and media group Naspers in 2010.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)