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Tehran Index · Insights

Three supply numbers, and not a headcount among them

TI Weekly, edition 006. Snapp screened about a million driver applicants and rejected 60,545, Alopeyk puts its capacity at 300,000 orders a day after absorbing Zap, Digikala opens storefronts for Instagram sellers, Azki says instalments passed cash at 54 percent of purchases, Snapptrip claims growth into a falling hotel market, and our analysis reads what three supply-side announcements chose not to publish.

BriefingSeptember 18, 2026·5 min read
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Key takeaways
  • Snapp reports roughly 1 million driver applications processed in the Iranian year to 20 March 2026, of which 60,545 were rejected on police security checks, about 6 percent against its own stated denominator. The figure counts applications, not active drivers, and no active-driver count or attrition rate accompanies it.
  • Alopeyk puts its processing capacity at 300,000 orders a day after merging with Zap and joining Golrang Group, with twentyfold growth in under three years. The 300,000 is capacity rather than orders carried, and the baseline for the twentyfold is not given.
  • Digikala is rolling out own-branded storefronts for sellers who trade through Instagram, bundling payments, logistics and content tools. No seller target, no timetable and no commercial terms are stated. An independent survey on the record counts about 130,000 active Iranian Instagram shops.
  • Azki reports more than 8 million registered users and says 54 percent of purchases on its platform were paid in instalments, passing cash for the first time and reaching 72 percent among users who held no insurance before. Both shares are scoped to Azki’s own purchases; no revenue or premium volume is given.
  • Three of the five signals count the supply side of a marketplace, and each releases a flow or a ceiling where the decision-useful number would be a stock: applicants rather than active drivers, capacity rather than orders, and no seller target at all.

Three of this week’s five signals count the same thing: how many suppliers a platform can bring in and keep. Snapp screened about a million driver applicants in a year. Alopeyk puts its capacity at 300,000 orders a day. Digikala is offering Instagram sellers a storefront of their own. None of the three says how many suppliers it has.

The week in numbers

60,545 driver applicants Snapp says it rejected, out of about 1 million processed in the year to 20 March 2026. 300,000 orders a day, the capacity Alopeyk gives after a merger and twentyfold growth it does not baseline. 89,000B toman, Iran’s Instagram shop economy for the year to 20 March 2025 on the Tehran E-Commerce Association’s survey: about $1.44B at that year’s average free-market rate (~62,000 toman/$), or $385M at the current rate (230,925 toman/$, captured 19 September 2026).

This week’s signals

Company · logistics. Alopeyk puts its capacity at 300,000 orders a day, after absorbing Zap. The intra-city courier platform says it reached that capacity after merging with Zap and joining Golrang Group, and grew twentyfold in under three years. The 300,000 is capacity, not orders carried: no volume, no revenue and no courier count accompany it, and the baseline for the twentyfold is not given. Company-stated and unaudited. Zap has no separate record here. Why it matters: Alopeyk’s record carries a 100 percent Golrang acquisition in its ownership note while the group field still reads Independent for want of control evidence, so the company is naming a tie the record had declined to assert. TI record 12 Sep 2026 · Signal record.

Company · mobility. Snapp screened about 1 million driver applicants in a year and rejected 60,545. The ride-hailing platform reports roughly 1 million driver applications processed over the Iranian year to 20 March 2026, of which 60,545 were rejected on police security checks, about 6 percent against that stated denominator. The figure counts applications, not drivers admitted or active: no active-driver count and no attrition rate accompany it. Company-stated and unaudited. Why it matters: the record already carries Snapp Group’s report for the year to 20 March 2025 at an average 88.7 percent of the national ride-hailing market, and at that share the only growth number left is a supply funnel. TI record 15 Sep 2026 · Signal record.

Product · e-commerce. Digikala is opening dedicated storefronts and independent branding for Instagram sellers. Iran’s largest e-commerce group says it is rolling out own-branded storefronts for sellers who trade through Instagram, bundling payments, logistics and content tools so they operate as independent stores on its platform. It describes a rollout under way rather than a dated launch, with no seller target, no timetable and no commercial terms. Why it matters: the record carries an independent survey of about 130,000 active Iranian Instagram shops, sized as comparable to the large platforms’ sales, against the roughly 550,000 sellers Digikala’s own founder claims. TI record 9 Sep 2026 · Signal record.

Market · insurance marketplace. Azki: instalments passed cash, at 54 percent of purchases. The insurance comparison marketplace reports more than 8 million registered users for the Iranian year to 20 March 2026, roughly 700,000 added that year, and says 54 percent of purchases on its platform were paid in instalments, passing cash for the first time and reaching 72 percent among users who held no insurance before. Both shares are scoped to Azki’s own purchases. The report puts Iran’s online insurance purchase index at 3.6 percent. Company-disclosed; no revenue or premium volume. Why it matters: Azki and the lendtech AzkiVam sit under the same holding on our record, so an instalment share that has passed cash raises a group question the record cannot yet answer, because which lender carries that credit is not on file. TI record 9 Sep 2026 · Signal record.

Market · travel. Snapptrip says it grew sales 3 percent while hotel demand fell 16 percent. The travel platform reports roughly half of Iran’s online hotel booking market and 3 percent sales growth against a 16 percent industry-wide fall in demand. Both the share and the contraction are the company’s own figures, and the period they cover is not defined in the source. No booking count and no revenue accompany them, and no independent measurement of that market has been identified. Why it matters: Snapptrip and Snapp sit in the same group on our record, which now carries two share claims from that group in one week, each measured against a denominator the group supplies itself. TI record 9 Sep 2026 · Signal record.

From the registry: additions and evidence updates

Loaded this week. Digikala: two official-record facts from the Tehran E-Commerce Association’s Iran E-Commerce Report, one sizing the Instagram shop economy, one setting an independent measurement of online retail’s share of Iranian retail beside the company’s own, which differ by about a third. Snapp: a gazette capital-reduction notice, and the company’s own terms naming the legal person behind the brand. Owed: Alopeyk’s group field.

Analysis: three of this week’s five numbers are about supply, and none of the three is a headcount

The five signals above split cleanly. Three count the supply side of a marketplace: Snapp’s roughly 1 million driver applications, Alopeyk’s 300,000 daily order capacity, and Digikala’s move to bring Instagram sellers inside as storefronts. Two count demand, and both are measured against a denominator the company itself supplies: Azki’s user base against its own reading of Iran’s online insurance purchase index, and Snapptrip’s half of online hotel bookings against its own estimate that demand fell 16 percent. This is a reading of five announcements, not of the market. No public list of Iranian platform disclosures exists to sample from.

The shape is worth naming because the record explains it. Snapp Group’s own report for the year before, already on our record, puts Snapp Khodro at an average 88.7 percent of the national ride-hailing market. A company at that share cannot grow by taking more of it; it can only widen the funnel of people who drive, and the funnel is what it published. Alopeyk is the same move one stage earlier: the capacity figure describes what the merged network can absorb, not what it carries. Digikala’s storefronts are the plainest version, because those sellers already exist and already have customers, and what is on offer is payments and logistics in exchange for coming inside.

Then there is what none of the three published. Snapp gives applicants, not active drivers. Alopeyk gives capacity, not orders. Digikala gives no seller target at all, and the most recent seller count on our record for it, roughly 550,000, is founder-stated rather than reported. In each case the figure released is a flow or a ceiling where the decision-useful number would be a stock. That is not an accusation. It is the shape of what was released, and it is why the record keeps applicants, capacity and active counts in separate fields instead of letting one stand in for another.

The question the desk will hold is narrow and answerable: whether any of the three follows with an active-supplier count for the same period. Until one does, a supply number says what a platform is spending to acquire, not what it has.

What to watch: whether Snapp or Alopeyk follows with an active-supplier count for the same period; whether Digikala names a seller target for the Instagram storefronts; whether the credit behind Azki’s 54 percent is traced to a named lender; and whether any independent measurement of Iran’s online hotel market reaches the record.

Every named company is resolved to the Tehran Index registry; every published figure carries a source and evidence state, and every signal links to its record, where the source trail is exposed. Date basis: where a source publication date has not been independently verified, the date shown is the date the item entered the Tehran Index record, labelled “TI record”. FX: this edition carries one conversion, dual-anchored because the period rate and the current rate differ by more than 25 percent: the 2024-25 average free-market rate (~62,000 toman/$) for a figure covering the year to 20 March 2025, and the most recent capture on file (230,925 toman/$, captured 19 September 2026). The toman figure is the reliable read.

Frequently asked

How many drivers does Snapp have?

Snapp has not published an active-driver count. It reports roughly 1 million driver applications processed over the Iranian year to 20 March 2026, of which 60,545 were rejected on police security checks. Applications processed is a flow, not a stock: it says nothing about how many drivers were admitted, how many remain active, or what the attrition rate is. The figures are company-stated and unaudited.

How big is Alopeyk?

Alopeyk states a processing capacity of 300,000 orders a day, reached after merging with Zap and joining Golrang Group, and claims twentyfold growth in under three years. Capacity is what the network can absorb rather than what it carries: no order volume, no revenue and no courier count accompany the figure, and the baseline for the twentyfold is not given.

How large is Iran’s Instagram shop economy?

The Tehran E-Commerce Association’s Iran E-Commerce Report sizes it at about 89,000 billion toman for the year to 20 March 2025, on a survey of roughly 130,000 active shops. That is about $1.44B at that year’s average free-market rate (~62,000 toman/$), or $385M at the current rate (230,925 toman/$, captured 19 September 2026). The toman figure is the reliable read.

Are instalments overtaking cash in Iranian insurance?

On one platform’s own figures. Azki reports that 54 percent of purchases on its platform were paid in instalments in the year to 20 March 2026, passing cash for the first time, rising to 72 percent among users who previously held no insurance. Both shares are scoped to Azki’s own purchases and are not a measurement of the Iranian insurance market. Which lender carries that credit is not on the record.

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