Dubai based Souq.com has raised a US $75 million investment from South Africa media business Naspers. Souq.com already has warehousing in most major cities in the Persian Gulf together with several in Eqypt and is aiming to achieve sales of US $1 billion within the next two years. It is pitting itself against Amazon which does not have a presence in the Middle East likely due to the complexity of customs formalities and a regional aversion to spending online .However, this is set against an environment in which internet usage, video downloading and mobile adoption are amongst the highest in the world and the significant wealth of consumers makes for a very attractive business opportunity.
Souq.com is countering some of the “blocks” which have caused others to postpone plans to enter the region by developing its own logistics support service under the name QExpress and its own back-end online payments business called PayFort. It has also launched is own tablet and claims 6 million consumers who subscribe to its newsletters, or are actively buying from its site which attracts 10 million unique visitors each month.
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