Another e-commerce platform owned by Mohammed Alabbar announces its expansion to Egypt

E-commerce platform Namshi announced that it’s planning on expanding to Egypt and establish a logistics base in Saudi Arabia, the CEO Hosam Arab said in an interview with Wamda.

The news comes a week after Dubai’s Mall developer Emaar Malls acquired the rest of Namshi’s 49% stake for $129.5 million from Germany’s Rocket Internet. It’s worth noting that the Emaar Malls, a subsidiary of Emaar Properties have acquired 51% of Namshi stake two years ago.

Namshi was founded in 2011, and has become one of the most successful and leading e-commerce platforms in the Middle East, providing customers with a range of goods in fashion, beauty, and homeware. The company even recorded sales of more than $230 million last year – a significant increase of 16% in comparison to 2017.

“We’re looking at trialing out other markets, the first one we will trial, from a distance, is Egypt. That 10 percent is bigger than the population of the UAE, there is a lack of supply and competition and while we will not be significantly cheaper, we won’t be more expensive,” Hosam Arab mentioned to Wamda.

At the moment, the platform supplies all of its customers through its headquarters in the UAE, but their planning on setting up warehouses and a logistics base in Saudi Arabia. “Saudi has always been our biggest market, from day one until today, the importance of Saudi hasn’t declined,” Hosam shares.

Mohammed Alabbar’s company, noon, another e-commerce platform has confirmed its expansion to Egypt and has launched its beta platform last month.

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