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Yahoo Completes Maktoob Takeover
DUBAI — Yahoo’s acquisition of Arab language portal Maktoob.com — a landmark deal widely expected to give a major fillip to Middle East’s online media advertising sector — was completed on Thursday, the founder of the region’s largest online community said.
The deal, which is also seen to spur the Arab world’s Internet penetration rate, was sealed about 10 weeks after the Yahoo announced the acquisition in August.
Both Maktoob.com and Yahoo, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, declined to reveal the value of the acquisition, the first major investment by a US technology giant, but some unconfirmed reports estimate the amount to be above $100 million.
“We think this is the turning point for the whole industry (in the region),” Maktoob’s founder Samih Toukan was quoted as saying by the Arab portal. Citing commercial confidentiality, Toukan also did not disclose the value of the deal.
About 200 of 300 Maktoob Group’s former employees are now part of Yahoo. The rest are being accommodated within Jabbar Internet Group, a new venture started by Toukan.
“Jabbar and Maktoob will maintain business cooperation. We are talking about a lot of cooperation going forward. They can use our services and we can use Yahoo’s services,” he Toukan.
The acquisition will allow Yahoo to offer Arabic-language content for the first time as well as Arabic versions of its products and services, such as instant Messaging, E-mail and Yahoo! front page in Arabic, Maktoob.com reported.
In an interview with Khaleej Times last month, Ahmed Nassef, Vice President of Maktoob Group, who is now the general manager of the newly formed Yahoo Maktoob, said the landmark deal would give a big boost to online media advertising in the Middle East.
He predicted that Arab Internet users would double in the next three to four years as a result of the increased awareness and an enhanced portal platform. Arab Internet penetration rate is currently less than 15 per cent, or 45-50 million users, out of the total Arab population of 338 million.
The Arab online advertising market currently accounts for just 1 per cent — or $50 million — of the total ad spend of $4-6 billion in the Gulf and Levant. By comparison, online advertising comprises 12-15 per cent of the total ad spend in the United Kingdom and 10-11 per cent of that in the US.
“We expect to see the online media increasing its ad revenue share to 2 to 3 per cent by 2010, and in five years to reach the online advertising spend level in the UK,” Nassef said.
The new Yahoo-Maktoob portal would have a user base of 36.5 million in the Arab world. Maktoob already has an Arab user base of 16.5 million per month while Yahoo hosts 20 million users every month from the Arab world.
According to Nassef, the Yahoo-Maktoob portal would be in a formidable position. The deal will give Yahoo ready-to-go Arabic content and valuable knowledge on operating in the region.
Maktoob.com, launched in 2000, has grown from having 5.5 million users three years ago to over 16 million today, while Yahoo’s user growth rate has been slowing in its core developed markets, losing the top spot in the US to Google in 2008, according to A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm.
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