Nigeria’s Eden Life acquires Kenya’s Lynk to start Africa footprint expansion

EDEN LIFE, AFRICA’S FIRST HOME CON CIERGE SERVICES SCHEDULING PLAT FORM LAUNCHED in Nigeria in 2019, has acquired Lynk, the former technology company connecting informal workers to job opportunities across Kenya.

The strategic acquisition, brokered by Enza Capital, will see Eden Life expand into Kenya and leverage Lynk’s successful platform that connected informal workers with end-users through automated job matching and standardised processes.

Prior to being acquired by Eden Life, Lynk, which was launched in 2015, facilitated over 150,000 jobs, transferring $4.5 million to more than 2,000 workers across 4 main verticals - beauty and wellness, cleaning and care, installation, repair and maintenance, and furniture and decorations while in operation.

Adversely affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in the past two years, the company’s key investor connected Lynk’s founders with Eden Life and coordinated a strategic acquisition - accelerating Eden Life’s expansion into Nairobi through Lynk’s established customer base.

Eden Life says it offers users a subscription service that delivers high-quality chef-cooked meals, laundry services, home cleaning and a new additional beauty and wellness service for users in Nairobi. The tech-powered company, which styled itself, ‘concierge of comfort’, says it aims to remove the barriers to finding reliable household services in Nairobi, building on its success in Lagos, where the service has an 80 percent retention rate during the course of the last twelve months with a month on month growth at 15 percent. The app’s robust architecture has enabled Eden Life to deliver more than 150,000 services in Nigeria since its launch.

It explained that as well as being able to select the specific chore to be carried out, the platform allows users to continually give feedback on all aspects of service delivery, from quality to user experience. The app has also been built to aggregate data based on customer preferences and offer suggestions based on prior experience, and includes additional features such as delivery time tracking, payments and billing, and user notifications that provide users with visibility and trust. The chores are overseen by “Gardeners” - the highly trained professionals who work with Eden Life service providers and end-users to ensure a seamless service.

AMERICAN TECHNOL OGY GIANT, APPLE INC., RECORDED ITS HIGHEST QUARTER LY REVENUES in five years when it posted $123.9 billion in the first quarter of 2022, something Tim Cook, chief executive officer, said was majorly driven by innovativeness.

Net profit for the quarter stood at $34.6 billion, but in comparison, fourth quarter 2021 revenues and net profits were $111.4 billion and $28.8 billion, respectively.

A banklesstimes’ data presentation recognised Apple’s 2022 first fiscal quarter results as the best the firm has recorded in half a decade as the tech giant’s gross margin printed at 43.8 percent, buoyed by an 11 percent quarter on quarter increase in its previous quarter’s revenues. That was a four percent increase from its Q4 2021 figure of 39.8 percent.

Apple achieved those results despite supply chain constraints, including chip shortages as the company grew its active devices to 1.8 million, another record which came with increased revenues in almost all of its product categories.

Analysing reasons behind Apple’s impressive returns for the quarter, the financial information by the company pointed to several factors with the main driver being the all-time revenue record that its iPhone unit set.

The unit earned Apple $71.63 billion, having grown nine percent in year on year terms. Apple pins this success to its iPhone 13 model, which it says contributed 71 percent of its U.S sales.

Furthermore, impressive gains were recorded in the sales of its Mac products where data show the company made $10.85 billion from that unit’s sales, growing 25 percent year on year and bolstered by robust demand for the MacBook pro. The Mac unit also registered a record number of upgrades in the last six quarters.

Also, the brand’s wearables, home and accessories, and services units also registered significant gains contributing $14.7 billion and $19.5 billion in sales.

However, Apple’s only blotch was a 14 percent year on year decline in iPad sales during the quarter which printed at $7.25 billion.

Per the impressive topline and bottom-line performances, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, spoke of his pride in the achievement while applauding the company’s staff for the innovative line of products that made the feat attainable. He further noted that the performance was better than they had anticipated.

Also, Cook appreciated Apple’s customers for their response to its products. Besides the recordbreaking revenues, the firm also registered the best ever customer satisfaction scores of 98 percent.

The CEO also reiterated the company’s commitment to helping build a better world. Apple is pushing towards attaining carbon neutrality across its ecosystem by 2030. It is also increasing its investments in education while championing racial equity and justice.