Digikala

Digikala ( fa, دیجی‌کالا, translit=Dijikalâ, lit=digi(tal) goods) is an Iranian e-commerce company based in Tehran, founded in July 2006 by Hamid Mohammadi and Saeid Mohammadi.

The e-commerce platform is designed to offer a wide range of consumer products, which includes sports and entertainment goods, electronics, groceries, personal products, and digital products with a return option and express delivery service.

History and growth

Digikala was founded in 2006 by twin brothers Hamid and Saeid Mohammadi, prompted by an unpleasant experience they had trying to buy a digital camera. The pair used $10,000 of their own savings to start the company. The company's valuation was $150 million in 2014 and $500 million in late 2015. As of 2021, more than 4 million products have been offered for sale by nearly 160,000 sellers. The platform has 30 million visitors per month and receives 17.2 million visits per day. It was also ranked as Iran's 2nd most visited website.

Digikala is one of the Iranian startups that has benefited from the country's increasing digitization. By 2017, 62% of Iran's households were connected to the Internet and this development has driven demand for Internet services that mirror Western digital platforms. It is the largest e-commerce platform in the Middle East with 1,700,000 unique visitors per day. Also, 85% of Iran's e-commerce now takes place on Digikala. The company does not publicize its revenue, but has said sales are growing at a rate of 200% a year, and that it is receiving orders from even the most remote villages in Iran.

Iran's economic volatility forced Digikala to lay off 175 workers in 2018. To survive, the platform adopted several initiatives such as a pay-per-sale strategy which allow users to receive a commission if a directed customer purchases a product. In March 2019, Digikala also addressed the issue of author authenticity of products in the platform after receiving complaints over the quality of goods being sold. In a statement, the company claimed that only 0.2% of the 2 million products sold were unoriginal and that the company has taken steps to implement stringent quality control.

Investment

Digikala started working with Hamid and Saeed Mohammadi's initial personal capital of 20 million tomans. Six years after its foundation, it entered the next phase of its business expansion by attracting investors. The Iranian private company Sarava Pars started investing in DigiKala in 2013. The second step of DigiKala's investment started in 2014 by attracting the capital of a European investment fund named International Internet Investment Company (IIIC). According to the government's 100-day report, Digikala started the capital raising process in January 2014 through IIIC in the amount of 100 million dollars in the form of a capital increase and in exchange for granting 21% of shares. foreign has been completed by Iran's Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization. According to the managers of Digikala in December 2017, 35% of Digikala Group's shares are owned by Sarava, 35% by Mohammadi Brothers, nearly 25% by the Dutch investment company - The IIIC European Fund, and the others are also incentive shares of 80 key managers of Digikala.

Shareholders

The ownership structure of the Digikala e-commerce group was publicly CEO of Digikala. Accordingly, 33.12% of the company's shares belong to Hamid and Saeed Mohammadi, the co-founders of Digikala, followed by IIIC European Investment Fund with 32.67%, Sarava Pars Company with 25.64%, incentive shares for managers and key employees with 4.46%, and other shareholder companies with 11.4%, including Lilian Mod Tejarat, Bazar Ati Ara, Pomegranate Investment AB, Kia Asa Tejarat Toos, and Pars Gostar Dina.

Number of employees

In 2021, Digikala planned to increase its number of associates to 10,000. As of 2022, Digikala employs more than 8,000 people.

Products and services

At first, Digikala sold only digital and electronic goods on its website. Since 2014, Digikala has changed its strategy to become an online store with many different types of goods available.

Subsidiaries

The Digikala Group is active in logistics, e-commerce, content, fintech, martech, and innovative fields. Digikala owns more than 10 subsidiaries, including Fidibo, Digistyle, Digipay, Pindo and Komoda.

Fidibo

Fidibo is a legal Persian e-book store that has been operating since March 2014. Digikala bought a part of Fidibo shares in 2016 and became its main owner in 2017 by increasing its investment. Fidibo released their first exclusive e-ink reader called Fidibook with Persian language support in May 2018.

Digistyle

Digistyle, an online fashion and clothing store, was founded in 2016. It sells more than 100,000 different goods in its store.

Digipay

Digipay started out in 2018, and its objective is to create a sustainable and comprehensive financial solution with a focus on mobile and web payments. Digipay services include Smart IPG, merchant management dashboard, mobile payment gateway, customer refund service, personal and organizational wallets, mobile payment application, API-based services, and installment purchase facility to its customers.

Komoda

Komoda is an Iranian social buy-and-sell startup platform. It was founded in July 2018 and has been a Digikala group member since late 2019. Komoda, currently hosts over 500,000 active posts and has demonstrated fast growth in sales.

Pindo

In 2021, Digikala launched a new product called Pindo, a platform for registering advertisements for buying and selling goods and providing C2C services. With Pindo, users can publish advertisements for the sale of their goods and services and can also create a link between their advertisement and Digikala product page.

Smartech

In the summer of 2019, Digikala Group chose Smartech as its dedicated marketing technology service provider. This partnership was initially formed to satisfy Digikala’s marketing technology needs and continued to provide marketing technology solutions to other businesses as well. Smartech is currently operating as one of the companies in the Digikala group.

Digiexpress

DigiExpress started out in 2019 as part of Digikala Group, it initiated its activities in Logistics & SCM ecosystem with the vision to enhance the quality of customer's experience in online Logistics Services.

Digikala Jet

Digikala launched Digikala Jet in the summer of 2021, which serves as a personalized online grocery shopping services provider. Cities like Tehran, Karaj, Mashhad, and Shiraz are covered by this service. The service is expanding to other large cities according to Digikala chiefs.

See Also

* List of companies of Iran
* Economy of Iran

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.digikala.com/

Retail companies established in 2006
Online retailers of Iran
Online marketplaces of Iran