iPOSITA
The first Post office opened its doors on 18th September 1922 in Kigali and was merged with the Belgian Congo postal operator. With the independence of 1962 the Post sector came under the governance of the newly established Ministry of Information, Posts and Telecommunications. The next year in 1963 the Rwandan National Post joined the UPU. Although being a relatively small postal operator, with 143 full time employees and 21 post offices, iPOSITA is very active in the digital sphere and has launched a Mobile App for providing a PAN African logistic service called “iPOSITA Post Load” Ref: https://rwandapost.load-africa.com
| Gov. Authority | Ministry of ICT and Innovation (MINICT) |
| Regulator | Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) |
| Designated Operator | National Post Office (iPOSITA) |
| Monopoly/reserved services | To be completed |
| National Addressing | Use of PO box for reception. (Not yet S42 compatible). Partnership to use a geolocation App for delivery |
| Participation in UPU Prog. | To be completed |
E-Commerce Context:
Rwanda is a small country with about 12 million people of which 3.31 million are internet users as of 2020 and that number is increasing by 9% per year. Internet penetration in the country is estimated to be at 26%, which is a relatively low number still. This could be explained by the fact that most of the internet savvy buyers and sellers are mainly found in Kigali, and e-commerce has not yet reached the regions. On the other hand, the Mobile connections have reached the figure 9.37 million in 2020 and is stagnating, indicating a potential saturation point with an overall mobile penetration rate of 73% of the population.
Local E-Commerce Champions (Alexa Ranking)
| Name | World Rank | Technology | Target | Export | Business Type | E-Payment |
| expat.com | 12,794 | Custom (PHP) | B2C | No | Classifieds | No |
| Quick.rw | 463,721 | WordPress | B2C | No | Classifieds | No |
| Visiontechnologiescompany | 511,768 | WordPress | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| Kasha | 1,478,698 | WordPress | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| Olado | 3,845,253 | Custom (PHP) | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| Vubavuba | 4,344,549 | Custom (Javascript) | B2C | No | Marketplace/App | Yes |
| Uhahe | 5,162,766 | WordPress | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| eMall.rw | 6,442,152 | WordPress | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| tuma250.com | 6,448,233 | CS Cart | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
| KD | 8,841,117 | Shopify | B2C | No | Marketplace | Yes |
Global E-Marketplaces Presence of local sellers (Benchmark with Thailand)
| Name | Rwanda | Thailand | In number of | Query to reproduce results |
| Alibaba.com | 15 | 8,021 | Accounts | Rwanda + Filter Supplier Country:Rwanda |
| EuroPages.com | 6 | 67 | Accounts | Rwanda + Country: Rwanda |
| eBay.com | 13 | 1,067,011 | Listings | Rwanda + Advanced search filter location:Rwanda |
| Etsy.com | 1 | 14,081 | Listings | SDress + All Filters > Shop Location: Rwanda |
Post Ecom Ecosystem
Track & Trace
Ecom Regulations
Consumer Protection
Cyber Crime Laws
Data Protection
E-transaction Law
Payment Solutions
AzamPay
Bank of Kigali
DPO
Eco Bank
FlutterWave
SLA Agreements
Airline
EDI Messages
ITMATT
PRECON
RESCON
Addressing
Geo Location System
Location
World Indexes (country performance)
B2C Index (previous):
99
% Delivery Staff:
7
GSMA Index (previous):
42
GSMA Index (current):
43
NRI Index (previous):
89
NRI Index (current):
96
LPI Index (previous):
80
LPI Index (current):
62
OECD TF (previous):
0
OECD TF (current):
0
ITU Security (previous):
36
ITU Security (current):
49
UPU Index (previous):
116
UPU Index (current):
107
Country Performance
The country has lost a significant number of positions in 4 of our 7 performance indicators. The sharpest loss being with the B2C E-commerce index where it has lost 20 positions, and then respectively lost 13, 7 and 1 position for the ITU Cybersecurity index, the NRI and the GSMA indexes. These losses can be explained by the earlier progress made by Rwanda as compared to other developing countries, as the MINICT ministry had adopted the “Smart Rwanda Master Plan” back in 2015. In the meantime, other developing countries with larger resources and populations have joined the digitization race. On the other hand, Rwanda has made a significant progress with 18 positions gained for the LPI logistics index, and also has made progress with the OECD trade facilitation index with a 0.5 points improvement. This progress can be linked to the heavy investments made by the Government and international partners to position Rwanda as a regional logistics hub.
Postal Statistics & Performance
Full Time Employees:
143
% MGMT Staff:
48
% Delivery Staff:
7
Post Offices / inhabitant:
21
Office of Exchanges:
1
Sorting Centers:
1
Rapid Post Offices:
1
Post Office Boxes:
11,374
E-Merchants (PSP):
0
Remote E-MGMT Sys:
21
Home Delivery Coverage:
1
Network Connected Offices:
0
Parcel Lockers/PUDO/CMBs:
0
Related listings
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