According to a memo sent to staff members yesterday by CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen, Daraz, a Pakistani e-commerce company sponsored by Alibaba, will lay off 11% of its whole workforce.
Daraz has roughly 3,000 employees, thus 330 positions will be impacted, according to the company’s official website.
Bloomberg was the first to report the information.
The 2012-born firm claims that in the previous five years, it has garnered 15 million active users. Additionally, throughout the same time frame up to last year, the average order increase was above 100%.
In the past 12 months, the market “became extremely difficult with a war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, increasing taxes and removal of essential government subsidies in our markets,” Mikkelsen said.
Daraz would “simplify” the company and emphasize on its core business to increase profitability and reduce expenses as a response to the reduced growth projection, he added.
In 2018, Alibaba purchased the business in an undisclosed transaction from German venture capital firm Rocket Internet, and it has since developed into one of Pakistan’s most valued firms. Daraz’s marketplace links vendors and customers in addition to running its own logistics and payment systems.
