eMAG, the largest Romanian online retailer controlled by the South-African group Naspers, has passed its Polish operations to Poland's second-biggest online retailer, Morele, under a partnership agreement, Profit.ro reported.

eMAG aims to focus more on the Hungarian market, where it is in the process of merging with former rival Extreme Digital, and targets entering new countries. eMAG's business in Poland hasn't generated the expected results as the company reported losses, and its brand hasn't become as popular on the Polish market as it is in other markets in the region.

The Romanian retailer entered the Polish market four years ago, in the fall of 2016, taking over the Agito online store - which had been controlled by Naspers since 2012.

The agito.pl domain became emag.pl, after the Romanian group managed to buy the web domain from a research institute. eMAG started developing its operations in Poland at the end of 2017 by tripling the storage size.

Under the partnership with Morele (morele.pl), the Polish group took over eMAG's entire activity in the country, including the customers of its marketplace (Romanian retailers using eMAG's platform to sell in Poland).

Tudor Manea, general manager of eMAG, confirmed this deal and explained it as a reflection of the company's desire to focus on another market - that of Hungary. Manea pointed out that the transfer went through based on a partnership concluded last year. The business transfer was completed recently, the data indicate.

(Photo: Vlad Ispas/ Dreamstime)

andrei@romania-insider.com