One of the key topics that was evident in the talks of the guests of “Retailers’ weakness or the economy’s speed bump” panel was the lack of accurate statistics of the logistics market. One of the speakers of this panel mentioned the country’s daily retail logistics statistics as 1 million and another speaker as 2 million. The reason for these contradictory statistics was the lack of collective software registration.
According to Iran digital economy annotation, This panel was the last panel on the first day of Nextation 2024. This panel was moderated by Razieh Minaei, a member of the Rahkar business team, and with the presence of Mehrdad Malekmohammadi, CEO of Tapin; Reza Maghsoudi, CEO of Datanegar Processing, and Ahmad Barekatin, CEO of Miare, were held.
Also, active managers in the logistics industry complained about the heavy competition between the public sector and the private sector. According to them, this unhealthy competition has closed the hands and feet of the private sector in investment.
Industrial logistics is highly profitable
Ahamed Barekatin, the CEO of Miare, said in this panel that about one million transfers are carried out nationwide and daily in Iran, and said: “The size of this market is about 11.5 million dollors to 20 million dollors, of which 45% belongs to Tehran. The volume of active startups in this field is also impressive. Industrial logistics is highly profitable. A large part of the logistics industry is in the hands of listed companies, but these companies need a lot of capital. Over the past two years, 400 million dollars have been invested in the innovation market of logistics startups, of which about 300 million dollars were related to Snapp and Digikala.
The next two years will be the period when new logistics companies enter the market
In the continuation of this panel, Mehrdad Malekmohammadi, the CEO of Tapin, talked about the challenges of private players in the logistics industry and said: “This industry has two big players, both of which are government; Post and Railway Company. National Post Company has 5 to 10% of daily traffic. Now, the important thing is that the price of these companies is done by order and not according to the supply and demand curve in the market. This issue is a big challenge for the private sector and has practically made it impossible to compete with these companies. In addition, it has caused the price transparency to be distorted and the investment risk for private companies to increase.”
Despite this unhealthy competition, the market’s need for logistics is beyond the scope of the services of the two state-owned companies. According to Malekmohammadi, currently, the weakness of the retail industry in the country is logistics. He explained: “Today’s competition for online retailers to attract customers is about shipping and delivery times”. Therefore, the growth of the retail industry depends on the growth of logistics, and the next one or two years will definitely be the years of the establishment of new logistics companies.
Weak income potential in Iran’s logistics market
Reza Maghsoudi, the CEO of Datanagar Processing and another speaker of the panel “Weakness of retailers or economy’s accelerator” said: “In Iran’s logistics sector, about two million transfers are carried out daily. Investing in the logistics industry is not profitable if it is not done in the middle mile, first mile and last mile chain. In other words, profitability in logistics is possible if it is done in the chain of a company.
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