There are 25 thousand Iranian online shops which have received their eNAMAD certificates up until May 2017. The revenue of these online shops is accounted for more than 18 billion dollars (70 thousand billion Tomans) only in the past year.

25 thousand online shops and 18 billion dollars revenue

Iranian online shops have grown massively in the past couple of years. However, according to the E-commerce Development Center of Iran, the statistics that we are presenting today is just for apps and online websites and does not include the online shops on social networks and messaging apps such as Instagram (more than 20 million users) and Telegram (more than 40 million users). Plus, this figure is only accounted for the online shops which have used payment gateways and does not include websites which only use cash on delivery as a payment method. Therefore, you can expect the actual number to be more than 18 billion dollars. 

Talking about revenues from messaging apps, Telegram is the most popular application in Iran with 40 million users in the country. There are many individuals or companies which are selling their handmade crafts or other products via this application. However, many people who are using Telegram are generating revenue for themselves by creating channels and selling ads to companies. This type of business alone has generated more than 23.3 million dollars revenue for the channel owners.

100 thousand Iranian android apps created by 22 thousand developer groups

Another important statistics from E-commerce Development Center of Iran shows that in the last four years, 100 thousand Android apps have been created by 22 thousand developer groups in the country. For Android, this number continues to grow since there are local Android marketplaces in Iran which are doing a great job inside the country. Even with the recent policies of Google Play which is removing Iranian apps from its store, it can’t possibly hurt the Android market in Iran.

However, we can’t say the same for iOS apps, since App Store continues to remove Iranian app. Plus, App Store is controlling most of the market and implementing a local version would be so much trouble. If this policy continues, Iranian companies would soon shift their resources from iOS —which many have already done— to other methods of providing their services for their iOS costumers such as a mobile web version of their app.