Kijiji

Overview

Kijiji is Canada’s largest online classifieds platform, letting people buy and sell locally across categories like cars and vehicles, real estate rentals, jobs, services, pets, and general second-hand goods. Launched in 2005 as an in-house start-up inside eBay, it takes its name from the Swahili word for “village,” reflecting its positioning as an “online village” that connects neighbours. It passed to Norway’s Adevinta when eBay sold its Classifieds Group in 2020–2021, and Adevinta itself was taken private by a Permira/Blackstone-led consortium in 2024. Headquartered in Toronto, Kijiji remains overwhelmingly Canada-focused, with roughly 95% of its traffic originating within Canada.

What they’re known for

Kijiji is the default local classifieds site for Canadians — effectively the country’s answer to Craigslist, but with a more structured, category-driven experience. Its signature strengths are two verticals:

• Kijiji Autos — Canada’s number-one automotive classifieds marketplace, where Canadians post tens of thousands of vehicle listings per day.
• Real estate rentals — the number-one destination in Canada for rental listings.

Its brand identity leans on the “village” metaphor: free, local, easy peer-to-peer trading framed as an environmentally friendly way to recycle goods “without leaving your neighbourhood.”

History

• 2005 — Launched by eBay as a start-up built by a small internal team, first in Quebec City and Montreal, then rolled out nationally across Canada by November.
• 2007 — Kijiji and its parent Marktplaats BV became part of the eBay Classifieds Group, a portfolio of classifieds brands across many countries.
• 2018 — Launched Kijiji Autos, a dedicated automotive experience, cementing its lead in Canadian car classifieds.
• July 2020 — eBay announced the sale of its entire Classifieds Group (including Kijiji, Gumtree, and mobile.de) to Adevinta ASA in a cash-and-stock deal valued at ~$9.2 billion.
• June 25, 2021 — Adevinta completed the acquisition, creating what it billed as the world’s leading online classifieds group; eBay became Adevinta’s largest shareholder with a ~44% stake.
• November 2023 — A Permira/Blackstone-led consortium announced a voluntary offer for Adevinta at NOK 115 per share, valuing the company at NOK 141 billion (€14 billion / ~$13.4 billion).
• 2024 — The take-private completed via Aurelia Bidco Norway AS, delisting Adevinta from the Oslo Stock Exchange and making Kijiji part of a privately held group.

Business model

Kijiji is a third-party (3P) marketplace / classifieds platform — it does not take possession of inventory or process the core transaction between buyer and seller. Most person-to-person listings are free to post, which drives huge listing volume and network effects. Revenue comes from:

• Paid listing promotions / feature upgrades (bumping, highlighting, and featuring ads for more visibility).
• Vertical fees and professional subscriptions, especially in high-value categories like autos and real estate, where dealers and property managers pay for placement and tools.
• On-site advertising and dealer/business advertising products (marketed through business.kijiji.ca).

Because it is a classifieds model rather than a transactional marketplace, there is no conventional “take rate” on completed sales; monetization is concentrated in the professional autos and real-estate verticals rather than casual C2C listings. Adevinta does not publicly break out Kijiji-specific revenue or GMV.

Why it succeeded

• First-mover scale and network effects in Canada. By launching in 2005 with eBay’s backing and quickly going national, Kijiji built the largest pool of Canadian buyers and sellers before Craigslist could entrench itself, and liquidity begets liquidity in classifieds.
• Free listings drove volume. Keeping core C2C posting free maximized supply and demand, producing millions of active listings and, at peak reporting, hundreds of millions of monthly searches.
• Deliberate localization. Structured, city-and-region-based browsing plus a Canada-first focus (~95% domestic traffic) made it feel more native and usable than generic global alternatives.
• Vertical dominance where the money is. Rather than monetizing casual trades, Kijiji built defensible leadership in autos (Kijiji Autos, Canada’s #1 auto classifieds) and rental real estate — the categories with professional advertisers willing to pay.
• Strong parentage. Ownership by eBay and then Adevinta — pure-play classifieds specialists operating leading marketplaces across 16+ countries — gave Kijiji product investment and operational know-how that independent rivals lacked.

Notable facts

• Name means “village” in Swahili, chosen to signal a neighbourly, local-first marketplace.
• Reported ~14+ million monthly Canadian buyers and sellers, 5+ million active listings, and ~256 million searches per month (2021 figures, the most recent official stats Kijiji has published).
• Third-party estimates put kijiji.ca at ~16 million visits over a recent three-month window, ranked #1 in the Classifieds category in Canada.
• Kijiji Autos is Canada’s number-one automotive marketplace; Canadians post over 25,000 vehicle listings a day.
• eBay’s 2020 sale of its Classifieds Group to Adevinta was valued at ~$9.2 billion; the 2024 Adevinta take-private was ~$13–14 billion, among the largest online-marketplace transactions on record.
• Kijiji is a comparatively small operation for its reach, employing roughly 200 people, based in Toronto.

Links

Title	URL	Type	Note
Kijiji — Buy, Sell & Save (homepage)	https://www.kijiji.ca/	official-site	Main Canadian classifieds site; tagline “Canada’s #1 Local Marketplaces”
Advertise on Kijiji (business site)	https://business.kijiji.ca/en	official-site	Official advertising/dealer products across autos, real estate, retail
Kijiji Canada — Adevinta brand page	https://adevinta.com/brand/kijiji-canada/	official-site	Owner’s page; “Canada’s largest classifieds site,” #1 in autos and rentals
Kijiji — Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kijiji	article	Founding (2005), eBay/Marktplaats/Adevinta ownership history, business model
Kijiji Statistics (2026) — Expanded Ramblings	https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/kijiji-statistics-facts/	report	Users, listings, searches, and traffic stats with sourcing notes
kijiji.ca Traffic Analytics — Similarweb	https://www.similarweb.com/website/kijiji.ca/	report	Traffic/rank data; #1 in Classifieds (Canada), ~16M visits/3 months
Adevinta completes acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group	https://adevinta.com/press-releases/adevinta-asa-ade-adevinta-completes-acquisition-of-ebay-classifieds-group-creating-the-worlds-leading-online-classifieds-group/	news	June 2021 completion; $2.5B cash + ~540M shares; eBay’s ~44% stake
eBay sells classifieds business to Adevinta ($9.2B) — Gulf News	https://gulfnews.com/business/ebay-sells-classifieds-business-to-norways-adevinta-in-92-billion-cash-share-deal-1.1595322808257	news	2020 sale terms; portfolio includes Kijiji, Gumtree, auto marketplaces
Adevinta in €14B buyout led by Blackstone and Permira — Cleary Gottlieb	https://www.clearygottlieb.com/news-and-insights/news-listing/adevinta-in-14-billion-buyout-led-by-blackstone-and-permira-holdings-limited	news	2023–24 take-private of Kijiji’s parent, ~€14B
Permira/Blackstone voluntary offer for Adevinta (NOK 115/share)	https://adevinta.com/press-releases/permira-and-blackstone-announce-voluntary-offer-for-all-outstanding-ordinary-class-a-shares-in-adevinta-at-nok-115-per-share/	news	Nov 2023 offer; ~NOK 141B valuation; eBay/Schibsted commitments
Kijiji adds horsepower to Canada’s No.1 auto classifieds site	https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/kijiji-adds-horsepower-to-canadas-no1-auto-classifieds-site-538784762.html	news	Positions Kijiji as Canada’s leading auto classifieds; usage stats
Kijiji: Severance Packages — Samfiru Tumarkin LLP	https://stlawyers.ca/blog-news/kijiji-severance-packages/	article	Company profile: est. 2005, Toronto HQ, ~200 employees, Adevinta subsidiary