DUBAI: Days after Amazon announced the launch of its first Middle East centers, online retailer Noon.com has gone live in the UAE, boosting a rapidly nascent e-commerce sector in the Gulf.
The site started working at the weekend and the app is scheduled to launch in days, its backer Dubai-based real estate giant Emaar Properties said in a statement.
Analysts said the arrival of Noon.com is expected to trigger a price war in the developing regional e-commerce market and will likely alter how shopping is done in the consumerist culture of the Gulf.
“It is important for us to shape a digital marketplace that is relevant to our local markets and serves as a growth platform for brick-and-mortar retailers,” said the project’s founder, Emaar chief Mohammed Alabbar.
Investors of the $1 billion project include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and leading Kuwaiti retail business group M.H. Al-Shaya Co.
Described by Emaar as an “Arabic-first e-commerce platform,” Noon.com will offer a range of clothing, home goods, and grocery staples.
It is also expected to start delivering to Saudi Arabia within the next few weeks.
The news comes just six months after Emaar offered $800 million to acquire rival retailer Souq.com but lost to international giant Amazon, which acquired the region’s biggest online retailer for $650 million.
On Sept. 25, Amazon Web Services announced a deal with the government of Bahrain to open its first Middle East data centers in the Gulf, expected to be ready by 2019.
Combined with the interest of Amazon and its subsidiaries in regional e-commerce, Noon.com and Souq.com are expected to intensify competition in what consultancy McKinsey has called an untapped e-commerce market.
E-commerce competition “will help change the culture of shopping in the region in the long-term,” said the CEO of Dubai-based Old Town Advisers consultancy.
“I don’t think the (e-commerce) market is saturated to such a point” that there is no place for newcomers, Faraz Mehmood told AFP. “There is still room for more.”
Smaller players in the online shopping market may, however, find it difficult to compete, Mehmood said.
Noon to trigger web shopping price war in Gulf
Noon to trigger web shopping price war in Gulf
No Saudi acquisition offers: FC Barcelona tells Al-Eqtisadiah
CAIRO: FC Barcelona has not received any offers, whether from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, to acquire the club, according to an official source who spoke to Al-Eqtisadiah.
According to the source, the circulating news regarding the possibility of finalizing a deal to acquire the club in the coming period is a mere rumor.
Recent Spanish reports had indicated the possibility of a Saudi acquisition of Barcelona shares for around €10 billion ($11.7 billion), a move considered capable of saving the club from its financial crises if it were to happen, especially as it suffers from debts estimated at around €2.5 billion.
Sale not in management’s hands
Joan Gaspart, the former president of the club, confirmed that the current board of directors, chaired by Joan Laporta, does not have the right to dispose of the club’s ownership.
He added: “FC Barcelona is owned by about 150,000 members, and selling the club is something the owners will not accept. FC Barcelona possesses something no other club in the world has; money is very important, and so is passion, but the sentiment of the members today is to continue what the club has been for 125 years.”
High market value
Despite the financial crisis the club has been going through in recent years, FC Barcelona ranks sixth on the list of the world’s highest market value clubs, with an estimated value of €1.12 billion, according to Transfermarkt. Meanwhile, its rival Real Madrid tops the list with a market value of €1.38 billion.
