Yahoo!'s Maktoob deal to be done 'in a fortnight'

Yahoo!’s acquisition of Arab internet portal Maktoob.com should be completed within the next fortnight, according to a figure close to the negotiations.

“We’re almost there, and the deal will be signed within the next two weeks,” said Hussein Freijeh, sales director at Maktoob.com.

“There are some small technical issues holding it up, legal issues involving the splitting of the Maktoob.com entity from [its sister websites].”

Yahoo! and Maktoob.com first announced the deal in August this year. After the eventual sale of Maktoob.com, the remaining Maktoob Group companies - including Souq.com, cashU.com, Araby.com, and Tahadi.com - will operate under a new entity called the Jabbar Internet Group.

The value of the deal remains undisclosed, but analysts have speculated that it may be worth as much as $100m.

Yahoo! has already announced it aims to deliver relevant Arabic-language content and services, as well as Arabic versions of Yahoo!’s popular Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail services. Freijeh revealed that work is already underway on the Yahoo! Maktoob Arabic homepage, which will debut in the first half of next year.

Maktoob.com was founded in 2000 by Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury as the world’s first free Arabic/English web-based email service, and currently counts more than 16.5 million unique users in the Arab world.

While Internet usage in the Middle East has grown more than tenfold since 2000, most markets are still in the early stages of adoption.

According to the World Bank there are more than 320 million Arabic speaking internet users worldwide, while less than one per cent of all online content is in Arabic.  

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