Yahoo! glows in regional performance

Yahoo! CEO and president Carol Bartz was clearly enamoured with glowing reports flowing from her company's Middle East and North Africa offices in a roundtable discussion with reporters in Dubai yesterday. Bartz gushed with enthusiasm over the magnificent growth of online demands for services in the region that are pushing the Middle East offerings of Yahoo! to the top of the firm's global pile. She said that demand has climbed steadily for Yahoo! since it acquired in late 2009 Maktoob's regional based site. Third-largest Bartz added that Yahoo! Maktoob page is now the third-largest in the Yahoo! family globally, ranking only behind first-place US and Taiwan. The Mena-based page has moved up two rankings quite quickly, suggesting that the region's market is ripe for investment. "That is just a fantastic expression of how valuable the site has become," Bartz said. Like other online-based firms, Yahoo! is working hard to capitalise on the growing number of regional residents who are logging on for the first time to the internet. "We plan to make this content mobile - as mobile penetration for the region is growing at an incredible rate," Bartz said. "In fact, this month we plan to roll out our Yahoo! homepage for mobile in both Arabic and English. Also look for mobile versions of our media properties, like news and sports." The new Arabic and English mobile homepage is set for release June 14 in the region, she said. Of the 300 million people who live in Mena, Bartz said "70 million are online today, with 50 million more to come in the next two to three years. That makes it one of the fastest growing markets in the world." She also pointed to industry figures that show only one per cent of online content is in Arabic while five per cent of the global population speaks Arabic. "Our users here clearly have a passion for engaging with and sharing quality content online, just like everyone else around the world," she said, noting that Yahoo! wants to close the gap. "In the past year and a half since we acquired Maktoob, we've seen our combined reach grow from 30 million uniques to 50 million," Bartz said. "This a more than 60 per cent increase in just 18 months. And I want to have the next 50 million come online as Yahoo! users, as well." To attract the next wave of new Arab online users in the region, Bartz said Yahoo! is concentrating on local, regional and global content to provide community issues that will interest regional subscribers. Trusted source "Six months after we launched our homepage, Yahoo! Maktoob has already become the second biggest news destination in the region after Al Jazeera. People are coming to Yahoo! as a trusted source for news and information in Arabic." Bartz pointed out that Yahoo! is specifically targeting female internet users to give them Arabic online content.