Alabbar hints at March 2017 launch for messaging app

Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties, on Monday revealed that his phone messaging service for the Middle East will have a launch date sometime in March next year.
"We don't have an exact time for the app yet, but we are comfortably targeting the end of March for the launch. It will be a typical social app, similar to the ones in the market, that you can use on a smartphone," he said.
Alabbar, who is also chairman of Symphony Investments, had previously revealed that he was planning on launching a regional phone messaging application to compete with the likes of other messaging apps such as WhatsApp. Alabbar has, in recent years, been spearheading digital transformation efforts in the Middle East, and has overseen several acquisitions and joint ventures in various related segments.
In April, this year, Alabbar invested in Yoox Net-A-Porter Group through subscription for a ?100 million capital increase. In addition, he had previously led the Adeptio group in acquiring Kharafi's share in Americana (Kuwait Food Company) for $2.36 billion. Alabbar was also behind two investor groups, which in July bought out founder Fadi Ghandour's stake in Dubai-listed logistics firm Aramex.
Industry sources, at the time, said that the 16.45 per cent Aramex stake was part of a strategy to build an e-commerce platform for the Arab world. They were proven correct when Alabbar teamed up with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and other investors to launch Noon.com - a generalist e-commerce platform that will include payments and logistics enablers.
The e-commerce website will boast an inventory of 20 million products and will go live in January 2017. The products will include fashion, books, home and garden, electronics, sports and outdoor, health and beauty, personal care, toys, kids and baby products, and more. Noon will initially start off with operations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with its head office in Riyadh. The operation aims to grow online sales in the Middle East from two per cent of the total market ($3 billion) to 15 per cent ($70 billion) within a decade.
Alabbar has also been heavily focusing on tech startups and entrepreneurs around the Middle East and North Africa region, and has launched one of the largest technology funds the region has seen yet. Led by Alabbar Enterprises, the fund aims to collect investments worth $1 billion to drive Arab tech-entrepreneurship and create a sharing economy business model that will be considered the first in the region.
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com