FixeAds

: we enable transactions : international strategy OLX Portugal to Angola & Mozambique

Abstract

The OLX website is a classified online service founded seven years ago in New York, U.S.A and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Aiming to become a global reference for ecommerce platforms — such as eBay and Amazon — it rapidly evolved to other markets and is currently operating in 107 countries, with a total of 42 different languages. The success relies on the local expertise as OLX expands by engaging with local companies, profiting from their specific know-­‐how and leveraging them back through international brand recognition. It is a Win-­‐Win situation that derives from the “Think global, act local.” premise. In Portugal, OLX has been around since last year and it is managed by FixeAds. FixeAds is a preeminent online-­‐services provider founded in 2004, accountable for other leading websites such as Imovirtual and Standvirtual. The purpose of the following case study is to emphasize the importance of internet services and its managerial role when in an internationalization process. For that, an assessment of the Portuguese company will be made, together with an overview of the online classified market in both Angola and Mozambique. Despite of the recent economic uptrend in both of these countries, the rate of growth is not aligned with the rate of development which then translates into several setbacks. The lack of internet access and its respective costs, the unemployment rate and the overall income inequalities were some of the major barriers found for a smooth implementation of the business unit. By contrast the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) shows promising results in a global context and it represents a clear opportunity due to the local industry’s initial maturity stage, ensuring there is an entire market yet to capture.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Cardeal (Supervisor)