Emirati business tycoon plans Middle Eastern WhatsApp competitor

Dubai Billionaire Mohamed al-Abbar has revealed plans to develop a Middle Eastern competitor to the phone messaging service WhatsApp.

Narrated

2 min read

The New Arab

26 Oct, 2016

The region is also home to a young and tech-savvy population [AFP]

Prominent Dubai businessman Mohamed al-Abbar is planning a phone messaging service for the Middle East aiming to compete with other top services such as WhatsApp.

The Emirati billionaire, who made his fortune as the chairperson of Dubai's largest listed property developer, Emaar Properties, has been expanding into other areas, particularly technology.

According to Reuters, when asked on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai on Tuesday if he was considering launching a messaging app akin to WhatsApp, al-Abbar replied: "Yes, soon."

Abbar added that "it's regional" when asked if the service would be designed for an Arabic-speaking audience.

He declined to give any further details.

The Gulf region has some of the world’s highest levels of mobile phone penetration, with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the top seven globally with rates near to the equivalent of two phones for every person.

The region is also home to a young and tech-savvy population - Saudi Arabia is one of the top consumers of YouTube videos - but there is comparatively-little Arabic-language online content.

Al-Abbar was behind the investment firms that in July bought out logistics firm Aramex, with a source at the time saying this was part of a strategy to build an e-commerce platform for the Arab world.

In April, he took a 4 percent stake in online fashion retailer Yoox Net-A-Porter.