Maktoob chief says regional dotcom industry still strong

DUBAI, 18 November — The CEO of Maktoob.com, the leading online Arab community, has painted an optimistic picture about the stability of the dotcom industry in the Middle East.

Commenting on media speculations about the overall business scenario in the Middle East, Samih Toukan, CEO, Maktoob.com, explained that while some of the business organizations, particularly those related to aviation and tourism were hit hard, the Internet industry has yet to feel any major repercussions.

"In fact, we are witnessing an unprecedented upsurge in the number of page impressions due to the fact that Maktoob.com has been delivering up-to-the-minute and impartial news coverage from some of the highly respected regional and international sources," Toukan explained. "While we earlier served in excess of 44 million page impressions, that number has now crossed well beyond 60 million page views due to the latest events. These numbers have been independently verified by Accenture and Arabian Business magazine."

Toukan also revealed that Maktoob.com had succeeded in achieving its sales targets for the year, registering 424 percent growth in online advertising revenue in the period January to September 2001 as compared to the same period last year. "The Middle East still continues to contribute the major chunk of our online advertising revenue, with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt commanding the largest share of our international sales," he pointed out.

Another reason for Maktoob.com posting strong growth this year is the diversification of its core businesses, including helping other private organizations to build their own online communities and providing e-consultancy to a number of companies.

He added that Maktoob.com had begun the diversification process to expand its revenue streams and not to depend solely on advertising.

In continuation of its new strategy, Toukan said that the keenness of regional Arab governments to develop their own online infrastructures was paving the way for a more solid future for the regional Internet industry.

"The opportunities provided to Internet companies are too many to be listed but, as a company that has been at the forefront of this region’s Internet revolution right from the beginning, we are pleased to see that the industry here has achieved a high degree of maturity," he said. "With companies here offering diverse and focused online services that are comparable to international standards, we can only be positive about the industry’s future."

Maktoob.com’s growth serves to emphasize the region’s developing importance on the global IT scene. Since its launch in October 1998, Maktoob.com has played a crucial role in uniting Arabs worldwide by providing sophisticated and reliable web-based communications and community tools, including the Arab world’s first free bilingual web-based e-mail service. It currently boasts of a membership base of more than 1.65 million registered members.