Yahoo! Maktoob

After almost 2 years of rumors about this deal, Yahoo! made a big move last week when it purchased the Arabic portal Maktoob for an estimated $85 million. This is certainly one of the biggest moves in the Middle East’s tech field, and with it Yahoo! has cemented their policy of focusing on emerging markets, and cashing in on the growth of those markets. After establishing presence in Southeast Asia, India and Latin America, Yahoo! now has a foot hold in one of the biggest untapped markets in the world.

The Arab speaking world is composed of about 320 million speakers, of which about 41 million are Internet users. In addition to that, the region has an impressive adoption rate of over a 1,000%. Previously, both Google and MSN took shy steps by establishing a presence in the UAE and Egypt and creating partnerships with local ISP’s and attempting to educate the market about online advertising, but Yahoo! blew their efforts out of the sand.

The Arab market is ripe for picking and, with this move, Yahoo! has taken the lead in that race and will remain there if they are able to cater to the market’s needs. The reality is that only 1% of Internet content is in Arabic, so there is a void and even hunger for Arabic content on the web. Yahoo! hopes to capitalize on this by their purchase of Maktoob, and extending their current portal by making it relevant to Arabic audience.