Tudor Manea, the head of eMAG, the largest online retailer in Romania, explained in a conference the recent decision to fire “3% of the total employees”. It is a reversal of the trend, after, in recent years, the company increased the number of employees to 10,000.
eMAG is one of the flagship companies of the Romanian tech economy, with massive development and acquisitions in the last decade.
In a conference that took place on Wednesday, the head of eMAG, Tudor Manea, said that “since August 2025, we have seen a trend of decreasing consumption”. So, he explains, “we started to prepare because there will be some years – maybe a year, two – in which things will be more difficult.”
“We started to think about how to position the organization so that it can withstand such a shock. In April, we let go of 300 people, that means 3% of the total employees. We had to make some choices and we invested more in some areas and less in others,” said Tudor Manea, CEO of eMAG, when asked by HotNews to explain the layoffs in April.
Markets are like communicating vessels: real estate is down, so are others
He added that in 2026 the eMAG group, which includes several companies, such as Sameday or Fashion Days, no longer has new restructuring plans. “We think the organization is ready for the turbulent times that are today and things are going well. April and May were very good for us.”
He says layoffs have been made on the “offline” side where the company has also closed some of its showrooms. Some of the people in the content processing area have also been let go.
“Why did we choose to close the showrooms? We didn't see any solutions, the showrooms sold a lot of electro-IT, eMAG sells a lot more categories and we didn't see how to keep sales at a good level.”
Along with the decrease in consumption, the platform saw a decrease in sales of more expensive home products (appliances, furniture). “The number of houses sold in Romania decreased quite a lot and as a result the associated products also decreased,” Tudor Manea also said.
Almost 17% of the amount allocated to investments goes to AI
In addition to the layoffs, the head of eMAG also spoke about the investments prepared for this year.
“We have proposed to invest 1.2 billion lei, more than we invested last year. About 700-800 million lei will go to logistics and delivery infrastructure, and after that we will invest in the AI area about 200 million lei. After that, we will invest in the financial services area,” he explained.
Much of the AI investment will go to iZi, a conversational shopping agent launched in March by eMAG. The company announced that it will be integrated into several areas of the purchase path and will also allow interactions through images and voice.
The agent will also include direct payment options so customers can complete the purchase without leaving the conversation.
eMAG figures: 9 million customers and 100 million transactions
In 2025, the eMAG group recorded a turnover of 11.1 billion lei and paid taxes of 1.3 billion lei to the Romanian state.
eMAG has 9 million active customers and 100 million transactions are made annually.
In Romania, the eMAG platform generated sales of 10.6 billion lei in 2025, up 3.9% compared to the previous year. The number of products ordered from the platform reached 87 million, 9% more than the previous year.
