The Company has announced to lay off 31% of its workforce in South Africa, including some cities in Pakistan due to the current uncertainty in the country and the global recession.
Airlift being an efficient and fast commerce startup has decided to close all its operations in the country due to a massive decline in the Pakistani currency and a global capital downturn as a whole. This has largely affected businesses around the world.
Moreover, the company intends to decrease its on-ground operations and emphasizes strategic realignment by focusing on key areas only where it can generate maximum sustained profit. Likewise, Airlift has withdrawn from certain markets including Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Peshawar, and Hyderabad in the home country. Similarly, in South Africa, the company has ended all its memberships in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Pretoria.
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Furthermore, the company is relocating around 10 of its dark stores in some of our largest markets of Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad, contributing to almost 90% of its revenue from Pakistan. Additionally, in a statement, the company said that this initiative is the strategy to focus on building scale and enhancing profitability in markets. Likely, this would also help to achieve economies of scale and high order density.
In addition to this, airlift is also trying to reduce the number of employees by 31% across all its markets as the company is struggling to manage its finances. Moreover, the company further highlighted the need for these steps to enhance its long-term vision and sustainability. Similarly, the idea of self-empowerment and technological advancement in their approach to customer-centric solutions is likely to create a huge market. Moving on, the company highlighted that its primary focus is on developing its key areas for an effective customer strategy.
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Conclusively, this shutdown would deeply affect Pakistan’s e-commerce market, as it would lose its major contributor in this sector.