BY MEHMET KAYA
The e-commerce platform Trendyol, which was Turkey’s first decacorn with a valuation of USD 16.5bn, is planing an dual-listing initial public offering (IPO) on the London or New York stock exchanges, according to Caglayan Cetin, President of Trendyol Group.
“We’ve set a high e-export volume for IPO. We aim for one-third of our turnover to come from exports. We may reach this goal sometime between 2023 and 2025. As a Turkish company, we are considering a dual-listed IPO in Istanbul and elsewhere. The second stock exchange could be London or New York, considering the conditions of that period. New York is an important stock exchange for technology companies,” Cetin said. The company aims to reach an e-export volume of USD 1bn in 2023 and to increase the share of e-export in total sales to 25% within five years.
Trendyol will also set up sorting centers and storage in some locations abroad in order to deliver the products that will be sold by the platform in Europe and the Middle East.
“75% of the products we sell are manufactured in Turkey. Turkish products have potential in terms of quality and price in Europe and the Middle East. We’ll invest in the technological and logistics infrastructure of these products for e-export,” Cetin noted.
Trendyol plans to make a USD 5bn investment at home and abroad in the next five years. They are also evaluating company acquisitions abroad. “There is a new market in Europe and the Middle East, consisting of 500 million customers, for Turkish manufacturers […] A customer in Germany, for instance, can buy a product from the Trendyol application there. Local languages, such as German and Arabic, will be integrated into the application. We will make infrastructure investments in this regard. We are also evaluating company acquisitions abroad to carry out these operations. We’ll also make some greenfield investments,” the Trendyol President added.
Trendyol currently directly and indirectly employs 1.1 million people but hopes to raise this figure to 2.4 million in 2023.
The direct e-export volume of the company in 2021 totaled USD 150m, while the total export volume was USD 265m. The total trade carried out by the company, consisting of products purchased by customers abroad through the e-commerce platform, amounted to USD 115m last year. “Our e-export growth rate was 408% in 2021. Our e-export volume jumped 264% in 2021 as compared to 2020. We received 6 million orders from abroad last year,” said Caglayan Cetin.
66% of the platform’s total e-exports were to European countries and 23% were to Middle East, North Africa, and South African countries.
