Cafe Bazaar

Cafe Bazaar
Native name
کافه بازار
Company typePrivate
Founded6 April 2011
FounderHessam Armandehi, Reza Mohammadi
Headquarters
Iran
Key people
Shahab Khodabakhsh (CEO)
Total equity€380 million
Websitecafebazaar.ir

Cafe Bazaar (Persian: کافه بازار) is an Iranian app store for the Android operating system, founded in April 2011 by Reza Mohammadi and Hessam Armandehi. Cafe Bazaar tailors its services specifically towards Persian-speaking users[1] and offers more than 25,000 downloadable Iranian and international apps for gaming, social media, messaging and other uses.[2]

In April 2019 Cafe Bazaar announced it has surpassed 40 million users.[2] It gets roughly 20 million visits a week within Iran[3] and its value is estimated at €380 million.[4]

Cafe Bazaar is by far the most popular app store among Iranians, controlling 97%[5] of the market. Cafe Bazaar is owned by Hezardastan Information Technology Development Group which also operates Divar (lit. The Wall), a popular online classified ad service similar to Craigslist.[6] According to an April 2018 report,[7] Cafe Bazaar has 36 million users, with 29 million using the platform every month and 5.3 million using it every day. In 2017, Cafe Bazaar participated in the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, the world's largest mobile gathering, to introduce Iran's local mobile ecosystem resulting in many new partnerships.[8]

  1. ^ "About Us". Cafebazaar.ir. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Iranian Android Market Records 40 Million Active Users". Financial Tribune. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  3. ^ "Technology Startups Take Root in Tehran". Wall Street Journal. 25 February 2015. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  4. ^ Amos, Deborah (25 October 2014). "Iranian Entrepreneurs Make Pitches That Are Just Practice, For Now : Parallels". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  5. ^ "How developers can make money in Iran's app market?". AzerNews.az. 4 September 2017. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  6. ^ Jozi, Alireza (23 August 2016). "Cafe Bazaar and Divar Expand to Afghanistan". TechRasa. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  7. ^ "Cafe Bazaar Annual Report" (PDF). Cafe Bazaar. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  8. ^ Azali, MohammadReza (3 March 2017). "Cafe Bazaar Introduces Iran's Local Mobile Ecosystem at MWC". TechRasa. Retrieved 11 March 2019.