In Iran, a first step to help the knowledge-based economy in the country to expand was to adopt a law in 2010 to support technology companies and startups.
Following the adoption of the law, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued general policies of the Economy of Resistance in February 2014 in which boosting the knowledge-based economy in the country was set to be a key issue.
Eight years on, Ayatollah Khamenei named the Iranian year 1401 (2022) as the Year of Production and Creating Jobs. That indicated that technology and knowledge based enterprises would be a key element in Iran’s production and manufacturing activities to offset the impacts of foreign sanctions.
Iranian startup companies have played a major role in expanding the knowledge-based economy in the country as they have served as cogs in the progress machine of an Iranian digital economy which has created a complete eco-system to respond to economic needs of the country. However, those efforts have led to negative propaganda against Iranian startups and technology companies.
Regardless of the fact that the process of decision making for the internet in Iran began to experience changes in late summer following the eruption of riots in the country, statistics show that the delivery of digital services to Iranian citizens by domestic applications has seen a stable growth this year compared with recent years.
Digikala has reported a 63.3% year on year growth in its number of registered suppliers in calendar year 1400 (ending in late March 2022) as the figure rose to more than 250,000 over the period, meaning that the Iranian online retail platform had played a major role in creating jobs in the country’s digital market.
Digikala also reported in its statistics that that its sales currently cover more than 7.5 million products and its users had increased to more than 40 million people.
The number of users is a major index for comparing Iranian internet businesses with foreign rivals. Divar, another Iranian platform, was being used by 53 million mobile phones in the year 1400.
The figure showed a 20 percent growth compared with the previous year. That comes as some 23.6 million new phones users installed Divar over the same period.
Some 139.7 million advertisements have been published on the platform while it has registered 45.9 billion clicks, a 12% growth compared with the year 1399.
Tourism-focused platform Alibaba reported a 3.45% growth over the past calendar year compared with the year 1397 when coronavirus started to spread in Iran and affected many tourism businesses in the country.
SNAP, an online taxi hailing app that has expanded into services for medicines and food delivery, cinema tickets or hotel reservations, has reported a 29.9% year on year growth in the number of users in the Iranian year of 1400 as more than 52 million people used the services of platform over the period.
A recent report by SNAP shows that some 3,761,000 drivers have registered with the platform and some 1,896,000 drivers are currently active in the company’s transport network.
The figures clearly show there has been a major growth in delivery of services by Iranian online platforms and dismiss claims that the digital economy in the country has gone into a recession.
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