Yahoo Acquires Maktoob
After signing a ten year deal with Microsoft search Bing, today Yahoo has agreed to acquire Maktoob.com, the leading online community in the Arab world with more than 16.5 million people unique users. This will be Yahoo!’s biggest geographic expansion in years.
Soon Arabic versions of Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Search, and the homepage and then eventually local versions of properties like News, Sports, and Finance will be available to Arab users.
“This acquisition will accelerate Yahoo!’s strategy of expanding in high-growth emerging markets where we believe Yahoo! has unparalleled opportunity to become the destination of choice for consumers,” said Yahoo! chief executive officer Carol Bartz. “Access to information and communications tools can positively impact people’s lives in many ways, and with the acquisition of Maktoob.com and our investment in the region, the Arab world will soon get a Yahoo! experience in Arabic with relevant local language content, programming and services.”
About Maktoob
Maktoob which means written or letter is an Arabic social network and web 2.0 group.
Maktoob was founded in the year 2000 as the world’s first free Arabic/English Web-based Email service, offering users a platform to send and receive E-mails in either language, regardless of their operating system. In the few years since, Maktoob has strategically grown to become an integrated group of companies and websites. The network of sites includes Maktoob.com, the world’s leading Arab portal with a market share of around 13 million unique users, as well as a range of companies and sites specialized in business and ecommerce in the MENA region.
Although the initial focus was on Arabic/English Web-based email services, Maktoob.com quickly evolved to attract users toward a host of additional services. Maktoob.com’s community services consist of email, discussion forums, news, blogs, chat , matrimonial services, games, mobile services, women content, sports content and a variety of other community and web 2.0 services.
About Yahoo
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services.
Transaction between Yahoo and Maktoub is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. The acquisition price is said to be around $100m, still need to confirm these details. There are so many tweets now on twitter and Maktoob is now one of the trending topics.
