Today, Amazon and Souq are making another acquisition to build out the logistics that will underpin that operation's growth: Souq has acquired Wing.
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One of the pieces I'm most proud of is about Doha's Pet Souq: an open-air market attached to Souq Waqif, a big tourist destination.
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"We are working to quickly integrate Souq and Amazon capabilities to provide an exceptional shopping experience for customers in the Middle East," said a spokesperson for Souq.
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The acquisition of Souq was designed to help Amazon quickly gain a foothold in the Middle East, as Souq was already one of the largest online retailers in the region.
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DUBAI, March 28 (Reuters) - Middle Eastern online retailer Souq.
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Mouchawar, who will continue with the company, also said Souq.
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Since launching in the United Arab Emirates in 2005, Souq.
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The bid has so far not been accepted by Souq.
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They also called for a boycott of regional subsidiary Souq.
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Last year, Amazon bought SOUQ to go after the Middle East, and today it says SOUQ shoppers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can now shop over 1 million products from Amazon's Global Store.
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Souq users in the UAE are now automatically redirected to Amazon.
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In this case, Amazon specifically pointed to Signal's use of Souq.
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A country that's blocking Signal would see traffic going to Souq.
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In the longer term, the sanctions would make using the souq.
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Emaar Malls' bid has so far not been accepted by Souq.
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The acquisition comes two months after Amazon agreed to buy Souq.
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It expanded into the Middle East — via the acquisition of Souq.
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Amazon paid $580 million in cash for Souq, according to filings.
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Correction: Updates have been made throughout this report to reflect that Souq.
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Founded in Dubai, UAE, Souq reportedly sold to Amazon for $650 million.
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Standard Chartered Private Equity, IFC and Baillie Gifford, joined the round. Souq.
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Updated with further comment on valuation from Souq and CEO Ronaldo Mouchawar.
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Earlier this year, Amazon acquired the Middle East's largest online marketplace, Souq.
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The Seattle-based company is paying less than $1 billion for Souq.
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The announcement caps off several months of speculation about the fate of Souq.
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Reuters reported last week that Amazon had agreed in principle to buy Souq.
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Now, Souq dominates e-commerce in the region out of its Dubai base.
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This year it bought Souq, an e-commerce firm in the Middle East.
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Some will sell themselves to the giants, as Souq and Flipkart have done.
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Dubai is already the headquarters of the region's largest e-commerce company, Souq.
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Just this year, it made two blockbuster deals, with Whole Foods and Souq.
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Those purchases were for companies in cybersecurity, game development, home security cameras and Souq.
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DUBAI, March 28 (Reuters) - At least some of the proceeds from the sale of Souq.
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As a result, Signal moved from Google to the Amazon-owned Souq content delivery network.
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Our sources had told us the deal had already been done between Amazon and Souq.
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The Uber-Careem deal follows Amazon's purchase of local e-commerce rival, Souq, in 2017.
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South Africa's Naspers Ltd, which has said it holds a 36.4 percent stake in Souq.
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The U.S. firm is buying the largest online retail platform in the Arab world Souq.
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Capitalising on the step-change in consumer behaviour and business benefit towards mobile commerce, Souq.
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But Souq, the Middle East marketplace it bought for $580 million was rebranded as Amazon.
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"We will continue to invest in our segment and grow our markets," he said at Souq.
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Until now, Amazon's only presence in the region was through Souq, which it acquired in 2017.
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Founded in 2005, Souq is often touted as a success story by investors in the region.
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But Souq apart, high barriers to trade have prevented e-commerce more generally from taking off.
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Of that $633 million of acquisitions on Amazon's quarterly report, $580 million is attributable to Souq.
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The acquisition of Souq is the latest move from Amazon to expand in the general region.
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Emaar Malls, a Dubai-based operator of shopping centers, submitted an $800 million bid for Souq.
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With the launch of the Middle East marketplace in the coming months, Amazon is downplaying Souq.
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Emaar Malls, the retail arm of Emaar Properties, was unsuccessful in the deal process for Souq.
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Mouchawar said the e-commerce market is expected to reach $20 billion this year, with Souq.
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Amazon – Dubai-based mall operator Emaar Malls is offering $800 million for Mideast online retailer Souq.
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Amazon.com Inc has agreed in principle to buy 100 percent of Dubai-based online retailer Souq.
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In a separate statement, Standard Chartered Private Equity said it had invested $50 million in Souq.
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Souq predicts the e-commerce market in the Middle East to reach $20 billion this year.
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Its investments include Tencent, Asia's highest value tech firm, India's Flipkart, and now-Amazon-owned Souq.
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Souq will still be available in other countries where it operates, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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The LNA still faces armed resistance in two neighborhoods in northern Benghazi, Souq al-Hout and Sabri.
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This week Amazon announced it had acquired the Middle East's largest online retailer, Souq, for $800 million.
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Alabbar-backed Emaar Malls Group, the retail unit of Emaar Properties, had also tried to buy Souq.
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Amazon doesn't have a big presence in the Middle East but the company last year bought Souq.
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The merger follows the $580 million acquisition of Dubai-based ecommerce company Souq Group Ltd by Amazon.
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Hong Kong (CNN Business)Amazon launched a new website in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, replacing Souq.
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Amazon reportedly has agreed to acquire Souq, a Dubai-based e-commerce marketplace focused on Middle Eastern consumers.
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Souq al-Hout came under the LNA's control early last summer and is still far from being cleared.
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One of the sources, declining to be identified ahead of the announcement, said the statement would say Souq.
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One Thursday night, when classes were over, we went to one of our favorite places at Souq Waqif.
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There are destroyed minarets, a burnt down 14th century souq, a number of perished neighborhoods and thousands of casualties.
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Sources with knowledge of the takeover said Amazon was paying less than Emaar's offer, making it lower than Souq.
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Editor's Note: Updates have been made throughout this story to correctly report that Amazon is not shutting down Souq.
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One of the sources, declining to be identified ahead of the announcement, said the statement would say that Souq.
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Earlier this year, Amazon jump-started its business in the Middle East by paying $580 million to acquire Souq.
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Mouchawar did not disclose the valuation of the company after several reports suggested it was $1 billion, allowing Souq.
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Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are in the top seven worldwide for mobile phone penetration. Souq.
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Souq says the funding is the largest-ever round raised in the e-commerce category in the Middle East.
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Two other one-time unicorns acquired this year, data management technology provider SimpliVity and Middle Eastern online retailer Souq.
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The two companies said today that they have completed an initial integration that allows customers to log into Souq.
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In order to boost the growth, Amazon has pledged to invest $5 billion in India and recently bought Souq.
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This is the second takeover of a Dubai unicorn after Amazon (AMZN) bought e-commerce startup Souq in 2017.
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And that is how those responsible for them wind up at the Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital, waiting their turn.
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Amazon launched a new Middle East marketplace on Tuesday, two years after buying the Dubai-based e-commerce company Souq.
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The news of Quidsi's closure comes the day after Amazon confirmed its purchase of the Middle Eastern shopping site Souq.
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Souq also hopes to introduce new product categories, particularly related to beauty and fashion, and to recruit employees, he said.
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Jumia, Souq (an Emirati firm bought by Amazon in 2240) and MercadoLibre have all built their own sophisticated payment networks.
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Mouchawar said there was scope to expand the business with Amazon and to increase the 3,000-strong workforce to boost Souq.
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Amazon is thought to be in talks to buy Souq, a large online retailer based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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The $18.32 rise in the online retailer's value was fueled by the announcement that it will acquire the Dubai-based Souq.
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While it could be transformative for the region, the acquisition is not the huge exit that investors had hoped for Souq.
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Regardless of the lower price, it does look like investors will get their money back, and then some: in all Souq.
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It's unclear whether Amazon plans to shutter Souq altogether or is just de-emphasizing it to focus on its main site.
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Signal tried to find an alternative and wanted to use Amazon CloudFront to disguise its traffic as a connection to Souq.
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Next came Souq, the Middle Eastern online retailer, which sold to Amazon for $650 million — well below its peak private valuation.
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However, the data excludes mega deals Careem and Dubai-based internet retailer Souq, which was acquired by Amazon for $580 million.
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Souq, which anyway ships mostly to the six countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council, a customs union, is the rare exception.
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The business also plans to leverage existing assets from Alabbar's Emaar Malls, Aramex delivery service and Namshi and JadoPado online marketplaces. Souq.
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For now, Amazon still lists dozens of job openings for Souq, with most of the positions in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman, Jordan.
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SPOTLIGHT ON MIDDLE EAST TECH The merger follows the $580 million acquisition of Dubai-based ecommerce company Souq Group Ltd by Amazon.
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One of the reasons why Souq is growing quickly is because of how it's tailored its platform to work on mobile devices.
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Wandering through Souq Waqif, a 100-year-old marketplace, I was blissfully lost amid tiny shops selling spices, souvenirs and live birds.
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In March Amazon announced it would buy Souq, an e-commerce site in the Middle East, and open two grocery stores in Seattle.
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A spokesperson for Souq said that the financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but we are trying to find out.
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai's Emaar Malls, operator of glitzy Middle East shopping centers, has made an $800 million offer for regional online retailer Souq.
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The Emaar Malls bid includes a $500 million up-front payment and a guaranteed 15 per cent internal rate of return for Souq.
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Souq says it offers some 1 million products across 31 categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, health and beauty, household goods, and baby.
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The Post described the events following Khashoggi's killing as a cover-up, leading to a campaign in Saudi Arabia to boycott Amazon and Souq.
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The United Arab Emirates is pushing to become a regional tech hub but is yet to produce a third unicorn after Souq and Careem.
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With 100+ employees spread across nine regional offices, and over 5,000 B2B clients, many of whom are giants in the MENA region, such as Souq.
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Emaar Malls dropped 0.8 percent after local business magazine Arabian Business quoted sources as saying it was bidding up to $800 million to acquire Souq.
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Shoppers "are ready to pay a 50 percent to 100 percent premium on an average basis (particularly) for the high-end brands," he said. Souq.
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Emaar Malls missed out on a bid to buy Souq when Amazon picked up the Dubai-based online retailer for about $650 million in March.
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Souq has raised $425 million in funding since it was founded in 2005, according to CrunchBase; the last round valued it at around $1 billion.
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"The Amazon acquisition of Souq was really a watershed moment for the region," Dave McClure, founding partner of 500 Startups, explained to me in an interview.
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Souq was valued at around $1 billion in its last funding round, so a $650 million price tag is most certainly a step down from this.
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In contrast, Souq works across a number of smaller markets, and this seems to point to a lot of potential for the company to expand elsewhere.
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Others, like the Middle Eastern e-commerce marketplace Souq, operated independently for a time before shuttering their own brand and fully integrating into the parent company.
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The company had dropped 2.8 percent in the previous two days on news it was making an $800 million bid to acquire e-commerce operator Souq.
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The recent acquisition by Amazon of the online retailer Souq for what's believed to be around $800 million has proved that MENA can produce big exits.
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I was wandering through Souq Waqif, the city's old marketplace, taking photos, when I stopped and thought back to the alleyway I had just walked through.
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We went out smoking shisha to the Al Gharafa area or to Souq Waqif; sometimes we met up with friends on the grounds around the dorms.
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Here's a chart of Amazon's biggest acquisitions so far: Update: This post has been updated to include deal values from Thomson Reuters and a mention Souq.
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It could snap up a substantial competitor to help counteract cooling growth elsewhere, just as it did in the Middle East by acquiring Souq two years ago.
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The company is telling North American sellers not to sign up to sell on Souq because it plans to have all that inventory on Amazon's own site.
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Ronaldo Mouchawar, CEO and co-founder of Souq tells us it's because he's more focused on growing and doesn't want to distract his team with unicorn talk.
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The company's shares had dropped 2.8 percent in the previous two days on news it was making an $5433 million bid to acquire e-commerce operator Souq.
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We visited the town three days before the attack and walked around the old souq, just a couple hundred yards from the restaurant where the bomber detonated.
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But only a few months later, Amazon has instead made a different move, this week concluding five months of negotiations to agree to acquire 12-year-old Souq.
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Shells landed late at night in the central Nouflin and Souq al-Jumaa districts, which had been mostly spared so far from the conflict, a Reuters reporter said.
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If a sale were to go through, it would be the second takeover of a Middle East unicorn after Amazon (AMZN) bought e-commerce startup Souq in 2017.
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The company acquired Souq, which is often described as the Amazon of the Arab world and the region's biggest e-commerce player, for a price of $650 million. 6.
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The company owns its own payment gateway called Payfort, and this has been a way to get merchants selling online not just on Souq but elsewhere, too, he notes.
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Aside from the recent bid to buy Whole Foods in the U.S. for a cool $13.7 billion, Amazon has expanded to the Middle East via a deal to buy Souq.
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Here are a few fun facts about the Middle East that I bet you haven't seen on the news: Did you know that the Amazon of the Middle East, Souq.
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The slow development of online payment services in the region has a major drags on the region's e-commerce sector, with the majority of online purchases still cash on delivery. Souq.
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"The funding will be used to drive further growth by investing in technology, scaling our marketplace operations, launching new product categories and recruiting the best talent," said Mouchawar, CEO of Souq.
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And at the end of last year, Souq was actually in talks to sell a 30 percent stake to Amazon in a deal that also would have valued it at $163 billion.
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From early morning, roads into the Sabri and Souq al-Hout districts were closed and the sound of heavy weapons and flights overhead by military aircraft could be heard in the area.
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"Following Amazon's acquisition of Souq, I want to offer you participation in a groundbreaking new sales project in the Mid East," Amazon wrote in an invitation to a select group of sellers.
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Souq says that it will use to scale up its business, which (like Amazon) operates a soup-to-nuts marketplace that works with third party retailers, and sells goods directly to consumers.
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In a report, investment bank Exotix listed possible concerns for minority shareholders in Emaar Malls' bid, including whether the online retail industry had synergies with retail mall management, and whether buying Souq.
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Souq, which means market in Arabic, did not provide details on what the funding round meant for its overall valuation, and it has not released details on its annual sales or profit.
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I also couldn't run the conversation I had with a Qatari who said the souq made him ashamed of his country: Rule No. 93 is no one is ever ashamed of Qatar.
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In particular, it will look to improve its mobile application; Mr. Mouchawar noted that 70 percent of purchases from Souq in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's second-biggest market, were made on phones.
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"We are guided by many of the same principles as Amazon, and this acquisition is a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region," aded SOUQ.
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"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," said Souq.
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Souq, the largest e-commerce company in the Middle East, was founded in 2005 on an eBay-like online auction model, but it subsequently evolved into more of an Amazon-style set-price retailer.
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It is still fighting in the Benghazi neighborhoods of Souq al-Hout and Sabri, where a military spokesman said one of his men was killed and one wounded by a landmine explosion on Tuesday.
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Just as Amazon's move to buy Souq is made in part while keeping an eye out for competition in the Middle East, it's also up against would-be clones and rivals in these other markets.
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Owning Souq sets Amazon up to play a significant role in the region's growing e-commerce market, which today accounts for around only two percent of all retail spend, according to a report from McKinsey.
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"Sabri and Souq al-Hout were stormed today from several directions and control was taken over several points, and numerous booby traps and mines were dismantled during the advance," said LNA commander Fadel al-Hassi.
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This morning is like most others at the clinic, the Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital, which, as its name does little to hide, is an entire facility dedicated to treating one member of the raptor family.
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Earlier this year it secured districts in the south-west of the city after a long siege, but some of the LNA's opponents escaped to join fighters in Sabri and Souq al-Hout, to the north.
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Souq, now the largest online retailer in the Arab world, ships hundreds of thousands of products across the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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"We were commissioned to clear all the main roads and thoroughfares in the areas of Benghazi where there was fighting," said Tarek Farkash, one of the engineers on the demining expedition in Benghazi's Souq al-Hout neighborhood.
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But purchasing Souq, which along with partners and couriers employs about 6,000 staff, will allow the US giant to fast track the entry of its core business into the Middle East, avoiding the headaches of organic growth.
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That essentially presents an opportunity to the large multinational players to buy these to expand their footprint, as Amazon has done with Souq; or for some of these smaller players to combine to get more economies of scale.
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In a "what could have been" moment, it started life as part of Maktoob, a portal that got acquired by Yahoo, leaving Souq out of the deal as Yahoo was more interested in the portal and media business.
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Of course, with access to the dark web and its pharmaceutical souq, there's little to stop British teens from self-medicating—and none of the scripts or check-ups that keep America's prescription Xanax users vaguely in line.
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We think the stock is reacting to the 3Q revenue result and 4Q guidance, but this ignores the impact of the shift from 1P to 183P, the comp'ing of Whole Foods and Souq acquisitions, and the Prime accounting change.
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In 22014, two people joined to take it to a new level: Iliana Montauk, a Silicon Valley native with extensive experience in the Middle East, and Said Hassan, a former employee from the region's largest e-commerce player, Souq.
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In the years between 2009 and now, Souq has been the largest of a handful of companies to tap into a growing class of consumers who are turning to the Internet and their mobile devices to buy goods and services.
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After that initial sale fell apart, Souq — which also held acquisition talks with eBay and Emirati retail group Majid Al Futtaim last year — had spent 2017 to date thrashing out a deal that jumped between $500 million and $700 million.
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Souq has been around since 2005, founded by Mouchawar after Yahoo acquired his Arab-language internet portal Maktoob, leaving the e-commerce business behind (that portal was shut down by Yahoo in 2014 as part of its huge international retreat).
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As the Financial Times wrote, a successful sale would be a "historic moment" for the region's tech and venture capital industries, which has "struggled to produce few high-profile success stories":Amazon in 2017 acquired regional e-commerce site Souq.
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The landscape in Asia is filled with a lot of strong national leaders when it comes to e-commerce — looking at India, Turkey, China, and the Middle East you can see companies like Flipkart and Snapdeal; Hepsiburada; Alibaba and Taobao; and Souq.
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Unlike Amazon, it has not (yet) moved into areas like cloud services, streaming media or hardware development, although Mouchawar confirmed to TechCrunch that Souq is in the process of looking for suitable media partners to indeed move deeper into areas like streaming.
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Fast forward to today, and it looks like Souq very much got the lucky card in that deal: the company, under co-founder and CEO Mouchawar, has steadily grown along with the Middle East's own improving Internet connectivity and its expanding middle class.
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Big deals like Amazon's acquisition of Souq, and the acquisitions that retail and real estate giant Emaar is making to consolidate regional e-commerce and logistics players, are also both signs of how the strongest startups in the Middle East are sprouting.
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However, details of how Amazon will merge operations with Souq have yet to emerge, with questions still about whether it will retain what has become one of the Middle East's most recognised online brands since it was founded in 2005 by Syrian entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar.
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Today, comes the latest development: Souq — an online marketplace that has been described as the Amazon of the Middle East — has announced that it has closed a funding round of over $275 million (AED 1 billion) to continue building out its business in the region.
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According to multiple reports that we have confirmed with our own sources, the e-commerce giant has acquired Souq, often described as the Amazon of the Arab world and the region's biggest e-commerce player, for a price of $650 million, to spearhead its Middle East business.
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On my last night, I was taken by a new friend to another great spot: Musherib, a neighborhood near Souq Waqif that is full of bare-bones restaurants with food from across the world, and old apartment buildings that offer a glimpse of Doha 30 years ago.
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Last year, for example, Morocco received some $50m from the World Bank to create two new venture-capital funds, part of a plan to cultivate its growing startup scene, while international investors poured $275m into Souq and $350m into Careem, a ride-hailing app based in the UAE.
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Souq gives Amazon an immediate leg up rather than building a new service from the ground up: the company includes both a payments and fulfilment infrastructure, along with a marketplace that already has some 4 million products and works with thousands of merchants to help sell their goods online.
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The deal sets up an interesting competitive landscape in the region, pitting Emaar, the largest brick-and-mortar retailer in the Middle East operating properties like the Dubai Mall, against Amazon, which is now moving into grabbing more revenue and customers in the region via its acquisition of Souq.
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In the letter announcing the launch, Souq's cofounder Ronaldo Mouchawar wrote that Amazon's new Middle East service will sell over 30 million products, "including those available on Souq and five million products from Amazon US." It will also offer the option of shopping in Arabic for the first time, he said.
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Souq al-Hout resident Mohamed al-Ruwayi, whose building had been cordoned off by the military because of the risk from mines, described how a university teacher had recently returned to visit her home with her husband and was killed by a mine as she walked back down the stairs.
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The Washington Post has been closely covering the incident, and Bezos was the target of a pro-Saudi campaign wielded by Saudi social media users and a Saudi journalist in the wake of Khashoggi's death that called for a boycott against Amazon and Souq, an e-commerce site owned by Amazon.
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Amazon's acquisition of Souq marks the company's first move into serving the Middle East region, which covers a total of some 50 million consumers across several countries, as well as a relatively untapped market: only about two percent of all retail spend today is made online, according to a report from McKinsey.
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Ultimately, a deal with Amazon — even at a lower price — was deemed the optimal way for Souq to move forward, and a better bet for investors than collaborating with other would-be suitors eBay, which isn't as operationally focused as Amazon, or Majid Al Futtaim, which is strong offline, not online. Noon.
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Souq today is the biggest e-commerce marketplace in the region — with 45 million online visitors per month; 8.4 million products in 31 categories like consumer electronics, fashion, health and beauty, household goods, and baby; and local operations in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt — giving Amazon instant market share from day one of its operations there.
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The Souq deal expands on the foothold that Amazon has established in neighboring regions like India, where it has doubled down to compete against the likes of Flipkart and Snapdeal — which are reportedly now talking about a merger, partly it seems in response to the billions that Amazon is investing in its business there, and the ground that it is gaining as a result.
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Hamad International Airport (DOH) in Qatar Qatar Airways and the Qatar tourism board are behind this free tour, which visits a quartet of major landmarks: the Museum of Islamic Art; the Pearl-Qatar, a high-end shopping/dining district built on an artificial island; the seven-year-old Katara Cultural Village, a mixed-use complex complete with opera house, cinema, fine art galleries, and theaters; and the buzzing Souq Waqif, a wonderland of Bedouin weaving, colorful kilims, gold and silver jewelry, handblown glass, and gypsum carvings.
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