Reading the future of MENA e-commerce at Dubai's Webit Digital Commerce Summit

On April 30, Webit Digital hosted a commerce summit that gathered prominent speakers and attendees in the field of e-commerce.

The speakers represented different sectors in the industry, and discussed current issues such as statistics and expectations regarding e-commerce market, online payment solutions, and e-commerce channels especially mobiles.

A report by PayPal published last year concluded that the e-commerce market in the Middle East grew from $7 billion USD in 2011 to 9 billion in 2012, and is set to reach 15 billion by 2015. One reason behind this is that a big segment of the population have begun to use e-commerce, and more merchants are launching websites to offer products that were not available in the region.

The growth of e-commerce went in parallel with an increase of smartphone usage in the region. Basma Al Jaberi, the e-commerce specialist at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in UAE, explained that 36% of online purchases are done via mobile and 39% of Emiratis own at least one smartphone, 44% have two, and 10% have three.

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Reading the future of MENA e-commerce at Dubai’s Webit Digital Commerce Summit