Press Release from Arab Advisors Group Edited by AC.

The entrance of a fourth cellular operator in December 2007 has enhanced growth and competition in the Yemeni cellular market. A new report from Arab Advisors Group analyzes the Yemeni communications markets.



عرض خريطة بحجم أكبر


Yemen’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (MTIT) regulates the country’s telecommunications market. The ministry is in charge of collecting operator’s license fees. The Government of Yemen also fully owns and directly oversees the operations of the monopoly fixed line operator, Public Telecommunications Corporation (PTC), and owns a controlling stake in the CDMA cellular operator, Yemen Mobile, through the PTC.

The Arab Advisors Group projects Yemen’s mainlines to reach 1.432 million lines by end of 2012 with a penetration rate of 5.76%. This corresponds to a CAGR of 7.1% between 2008 and 2012. This growth is expected to be mainly through the PTC’s efforts to provide fixed line services in the rural areas of Yemen.

The report -which has 61 pages and 51 detailed exhibits- analyzes the communications markets in Yemen and presents detailed profiles of all the major operators including PTC (Public Telecommunications Company), TeleYemen, Sabafon, MTN Yemen, Yemen Mobile, and “Y”. The report also provides 5-years historical and 5-years projections for many telecom and demographic indicators in the country.

“The Arab Advisors Group projects Yemen’s cellular lines to continue its healthy growth. With the entry of the fourth cellular operator in Yemen, the Arab Advisors Group projects Yemen’s cellular market to grow at a CAGR of 15.7% from 2008 to 2012, reaching 10.537 million subscribers (a cellular penetration rate of 42.4%) up from 4.437 million by end of 2007.”  Hussam Barhoush, Arab Advisors senior research analyst of Arab Advisors Group wrote in the report.

AC comment: It is worth mentioning that all Arabs decent from Yemen.

UPDATE BELLOW:

Here at ArabCurnch we are big fans of TechCrunch, it is a must read for anyone involved with the internet industry specially web 2.0 ( Disclosure ArabCrunch is not affiliated with TechCrunch it is just we both have cool names  )

I love this new design it is more streamlined and cuts the clutter. And now I will be able to navigate through TC network more easily. thought I will be  waiting for TC’s implementation of new search using Yahoo BOSS Custom, in which Mark Hendrickson says “it will lets you search by keyword across our entire network of blogs, plus CrunchBase.” because the old search simply did not work.

My suggestion to TC is if they can add more hot company list widget on the sidebar, hot companies can be based on mentions on TC, Techmeme, and using AideRSS API.

Here is the old and new designs

Here is the first  design since 2005 until may 2006.

Where Michael Arrington founder of TechCrunch commented in TC redesigns:

I love that old one too. Fred Oliveira from webreakstuff.com did it. we still use it on mobilecrunch and techcrunch france. but when we went to 125×125 ad units, and added a 300 px ad unit (an industry standard) we had to change to a different layout. it’s also nice to change things around every once in awhile too.

You can read the  Mark Hendrickson post on TC regarding the redesign here.

UPDATE:

One thing About TC new design I did not pay attention to: I DO NOT LIKE TO CLICK HERE TO (READ MORE)- THE Whole STORY, The complete post SHOULD BE AT THE FRONT PAGE, COME ON THIS IS A BLOG, I WOULD ONLY CLICK ON THE STORY URL if I wana read comments or add my own. So Please TC get this to where it was.

Today is the Twitter day, as this is the second Twitter related news post.

Baher Al Hakim aka DrBaher, is a twitter daily user who is located in UAE , has tweeted today that Etisalat has unblocked twitter for its subscribers in UAE. Etisalat provides Land line, Mobile and Internet access in UAE and other countries.

According to DrBaher Etisalat blocked twitter previously because its free SMS notifications was competing with their SMS service, “here’s some good side-effects for disabling SMS notifications afterall…”

Etisalat has a reputation of blocking many International well known websites, they blocked StumbleUpon  last July but they unblock it later last month.

TweetSMS has been launched today after around a week of internal testing, the launch was scheduled yesterday, but apparently they had some hiccups which lead to delaying the launch to today.

As reported by ArabCrunch last week, TweetSMS enables Twitter’s users who no longer can get SMS notifications from Twitter in countries outside USA, Canada, and India.

TweetSMS messages are paid for by credits. 1 Credit = 1p (1 pence in Great British Pounds), which will be converted from your local currency when you purchase them. So If your country is listed as 5 credits, a single SMS message would cost you 5p (or equivalent). Message bundles are currently available in quantities of 100 credits, 200 credits, 500 credits and 1000 credits.

The service is available in 190 countries with different fees. For example fees for some Arab countries are:  Jordan, Oman, Qatar , Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen , Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya Arab Jamahiriya  4 credits.  U.A.E , Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon  5 credits, Morocco  7 credits , while Kuwait  8 credits.
For non Arab countries Australia, Denmark and Japan 4 credits, Norway 5 credits, France and Italy 8 credits.
To view TweetSMS full price list go here.

Another service that enables Twitter 2 way SMS in countries that do not have it for free is twitMobile which is already live since around a week or so, twitMobile seems to have cheaper rates than TweetSMS in some countries. They have same credit charge, 1 penny per credit. The following countries have cheaper rates than TweetSMS: UAE, Kuwait, and Norway 4 credits, while Australia 3 credit, full countries price list can be found here.

ZygoTweet  is another solution for SMS Tweeting, but they have not launched yet.
In Jordan it will cost me 4 Penny per message with TweetSMS, around 6 Jordanian Piaster. Which is the same price for sending SMS to an international mobile  number, while to a Jordanian mobile number it cost 3 Piaster , though the price is reasonable, I’d rather wait tell TweetSMS or any other startup enable free ad supported SMS. But If I get a Zain Jordan number I might use Watwet reviewed earlier by ArabCrunch here.

A new Arab Advisors Group major survey of Internet users in Tunisia revealed that 36.4% of Internet users in Tunisia use e-commerce. Based on the survey results, the Arab Advisors Group estimates that Tunisia’s Internet users spent US$ 132.7 million during the past 12 months in e-commerce transactions.

The survey report, Tunisia Internet users and e-commerce Survey 2008 was released on August 20, 2008 and provides the results of a major comprehensive online survey of Internet users in Tunisia. The survey covered the Internet usage, e-commerce and cellular usage and habits of the Internet users in Tunisia. The survey field work was conducted between May and July 2008.

Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with reputable mail list providers in Tunisia. The survey report includes online replies from 1,093 respondents. Quality control checks and personal validation were conducted by Arab Advisors Group’s team. The survey was conducted on the general Internet population, including both genders and all age groups across Tunisia. The online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 4%.

According to the survey results, 84.0% of Internet users in Tunisia have Internet access at home, 75.8% use Internet at work, while 24.0% use public hot spots. Naturally, access methods overlapped.

While the survey covered Internet users, it also probed the reasons behind why other members of the same households surveyed do not use the Internet. Based on the feedback of Internet users, computer illiteracy, lack of interest, lack of a perceived need to use the Internet and being too young to use the Internet are the main reasons for keeping non-Internet users in Tunisia from using the Internet.

The survey also revealed e-commerce adoption in Tunisia. 36.4% of Tunisia Internet users shop online or through their mobile phone. The Arab Advisors Group estimated the number of e-commerce users in Tunisia to be over 416000 and total e-commerce expenditure during the past year to be US$ 132.7 million.

“The majority of e-commerce users make electronic payments through credit cards. 64.8% of e-commerce users use credit cards as their e-commerce method of payment. Following credit cards, 27.4% of e-commerce users use prepaid Internet shopping card for their payments. ”  Hussam Barhoush, Arab Advisors senior research analyst wrote in the survey report.

The survey report includes 70 pages and 82 detailed exhibits. Purchasing the survey includes the right to request 3 extra cross tabulations and / or filters at no extra charge, where you can buy it from here.

Speaking during “Culture of Google Life Inside, and How to Apply?” Lecture which was held in Amman, Jordan last week, Husni Khuffash  Google Country Business Development Manager, UAE,  said that Google’s official  answer  to whether they will open an engineering office in Amman or not, is that Google  does not comment on rumors and when they decide to open an office in the region, they will inform every body. He also said that UAE Googlers will  move to a new Dubai office  after mid September. Google also has an office in Egypt, But as I said before that Amman will be the location of the engineering office, as multiple sources has told me.

The event had huge application from people who wanted to attend, but due to the limited space only 150 people attended.

Husni was the sole  speaker in the lecture, where he presented Google’s philosophy and work culture to the crowed.

Fortune magazine called Google the best working place environment, which is also shared by Opera Winfry according to Husni, where he displayed a video of Opera show regarding this matter.

Husni displayed many adverts for Google, all the people on them were actual Google employees. He cited an example of the loyalty Googlers have to Google, where every on in its Mountain View  Silicon Valley’s  head quarter around 5,000 agreed to go out in the rain to record a video advert for Google.

Husni said that Google received 1 million CV last year, in which they hired a couple of thousands.

Husni  also showed many videos displaying the luxury Googlers enjoy in its head quarter in Mountain View in  Silicon valley and its regional HQ in Dublin, Ireland. Where Googlers can bring their dogs to work, enjoy free gym, a wide rang of food choices. and access to many nice toys among other things.  Husni said that  Google wants to make the work place for its employees feels like home. He also said googlers work less hours but produce more.

One of the interesting things he mentioned is that Silicon valley Googlers are invited to eat free food in San Francisco, CA, USA and Arabic food is served to them once a month.

Husni will email me the links to some of the videos he showed during the event, and I will post them when they arrive. Mean while I picked this one after a fast search on Youtube (Note: I did not see the video since my net speed is down, but this video has 124,890 on Youtube Update: here are the Videos:







I asked him whether these facilities which are available at Google HQ and Ireland branch, would be also available in Middle East office, he said the office in Dubai will reflect the Google life style and culture.

Moreover  he said that Google offers many benefits to its works worldwide, such as free gym membership, and 50% subsidy to learn a new language.

Husni mentioned odd things about Google “inspiring” work environment where he said Dublin HQ had a pajama day and in other offices the ugly dress contest, but these days were optional to Google’s employees to participate in. Which is funny in my opinion, and my take is that the conventional business dress code of a the formal tie uniform should be abolished to any type of dress as long it is neat and covering the body in a respectful manner:) .

Husin mentioned how he got to work with Google. In which around 4, 000 applied to his position, but he was head hunted, and they chose him for many reasons. He said they looked at his experience, his education, and entrepreneurship spirit and social activities he did during his life. He also added that his work in the a restaurant during university was also a helpful factor, that  showed that he sets plans on early stages and has been working hard to achieve his goals.

You can look his linked in profile here.  and here is an interview with Husni that dates to 2004 when he was Regional Manager for Maktoob.com.

Husni said he left online business few years ago and started a small consultancy firm for several industries in Dubai, but he joined Google because he has a passion for what it is doing, and for the online industry.

Husni also touched in his own work experience with Google, he said he used to work for 14 hours a day, but the HR called him and told him “you have been working too hard” and gave him a vacation and told him you only work 8 hours a day. This is unfortunately not a common practice among Jordanian IT companies.

Every new employee at Google has to go through a series of interviews before joining. In an answer to how Google would keep the ego of their employees down, he answered that every new employees that joins after the person is smarter than him/her, so it is impossible to be the smartest.

When asked whether Googles’ founders share the (humbleness ) of Google’s employees, he mentioned this: After having few weeks experience with personal secretaries which was suggested to them by the Google’s CEO, they told him they do not want to have secretaries and asked him to transfer them to other departments inside Google. He also said that they have a culture of sharing and participate with many employees activities for example they get their daily meals in the office with the employees at the restaurants Google Plex. I also remember reading that they go to work with very normal cars. But in my opinion, there is nothing wrong in buying luxury things as long the persons earnings are from legitimate means.

Husni said that Google chose allot  students from around the world for its internship program every year, and they do not have a quota for any country, they simply chose the best CV. Moreover they also have Google Ambassador program for students.

As for Google’s philosophy he said Google first focus in the user, and everything will follow (like business model) among other remarks, he also said Google believes in “do business with no evil”.

He also said that Google is an engineering company, and they never relax because they know that somewhere out there in the world there are two engineers developing the next big thing.

The lecture was organized by IEEE Gold and Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE).

To apply to Google jobs go to here .

Note: I had few pics of this event, but unfortunately someone corrupted the memory card

3alarasi is an interesting Jordanian startup, which is an entertainment portal that mix its in-house produced unique animated cartoons, caricature, audio productions, and articles, with users generated & sharing of content:Games, videos, audios and photos, with many social networking features.

3alarasi means in local Jordanian dialect: I accept with great pleasure or I appreciate greatly.

3alarasi uniqueness is in its in-house produced content, which currently produced by its cofounder cartoonist Omar Abdallat, his animated cartoons is a distinctive attempt to fill the gap between Arab originated animations and the ones  originating from western and Asian producers. 3alarasi’s edge is in its localized content that understands the local culture more than being competitor in high-tech long animations.

In-House Content:

Currently Omar uses different carton characters, in his cartoons, and animated cartoons, in which they tackle many issues related to the Jordanian society, such as Awad Abu Shifa and Jaber Kawanes, each cartoon character represent a segment of the Jordanian society, 7awa (Arabic for Eve) represent a women who tackle women related issues. Other characters include: saleem abu saleem o um saleem.

Though the cartoon characters and the animation are currently limited to Jordanian culture and dialect, 3alarasi has plans to add Egyptian and Khaleji (referred to the Arab Gulf area) characters and content soon. and While the site Interface is currently in English, an Arabic interface is also coming soon. According to Amer AbuLaila CTO and cofounder of 3alarasi.

The following video is an example of 3alarasi in-house produced animation, it uses slang Jordanian dialect:

Video transcript:

(o 3ard okhti)= by the honor of my sister( he is swearing by the honor of his sister, which is not a classy swearing expression that is somehow common in Jordan among some youth, but not used by officials, and in Islam it is considers (Shirk) - associating a partner to God- when someone swear by anything other than God) -ya jama- you (group of people) and I am not lying (tripping) to you with any word, that from how a professional driver I am, I light my cigarette in Amman, -the capital of Jordan 400KM away from Aqaba-, and finish it in Aqaba, but also I am used to (Tanatat) gays‘ calm way of driving, like once I went back from Aqaba to Amman in (darrs )- i did not understand this word -Amman in the center of the Map- and with the honor of my sister, and with the honor of my sister, I am not a tripper (liar).

MMS:

Beside 3alarasi website which all its service on the web are free-, 3alarasi offers MMS Channels for Zain Jordan subscribers, with 0.20 JD( Jordanain Dinars, (US$ 1= JD 0.70O) fee per message, though it plans to enable this service with more regional mobile operators, “we are negotiating with several operators in KSA, Oman, Yemen, Palestine” said AbuLaila.

User Generated Content:

The Gaming community is one of the other interesting aspect of 3alarasi, where users can upload shockwave apps and share them with the community who in turn can have fun playing them. I do not know if there is any other regional game sharing website available today in the Arab world, so that makes them first also in this area.

As mentioned earlier 3alarasi also offers to its users the ability to upload and share content and offers social networking services.

Users can upload for free videos, audios, and photos, with many privacy options, while Video upload can take any format,  uploaded from Youtube or Google videos, or an immediate capture from your personal cam.

The social networking aspect of 3alrasi has all the usual social networking featuers: Profiles, adding friends, commenting on each profile, sending messages and discussing topics on the forum ( which interface is not inline with 3alarasi theme). Users Profile for example can be customized either with an HTML code or through what-you-see-what-you-get customization option.

Business Model:

3alarasi business model is based on MMS subscription revenue sharing with mobile operators in the region and in selling ads on its website.

According to ERUM Creative Productions L.L.C that owns 3alarasi, during the last 18 months, ERUM has served over 600 unique animation episodes where more than 51,000 mobile users in Jordan enjoyed our MMS channels, 3alarasi, 7awa, and Falla7. I estimate 3alarasi mobile revenues to be around 142,800 JD monthly (US$ 1= JD 0.70), which would be 1,713,600 JD yearly. ( Based on 0.20 JD per message on the assumption of 7 MMS per user per week, with 50-50 MMS revenue sharing with Zain Jordan, with 51,000 subscribers)

But according to AbuLaila the company has been funded privately and recently 28% of the company was sold to 2 Jordanian investors, who valuated the company at half a million JD (US$ 1= JD 0.70O), in which I suggest this valuation is too low if you look at my estimated revenues above, that does not take into account the expected increase when 3alarasi’s MMS is enabled in other regional countries. Let alone the expected ads revenues from the website.

3alarasi online ads offers, Banner Ads: with three locations on each page on the website. Videos and audio Ads format can be: a text ads rotator on the video or audio player; also the video ad  can be played before the video or audio (Pre roll ad).

I could not get information if 3alarasi developed the video and ad insertion technologies or if they are using a third party application, since AbuLaila, went offline before answering all my questions, but I hope he can send me some more information soon.

Though according to the company advertising system has Ad tracking System , that enables advertisers to track their campaigns, view reports, breakdowns, and with graph tools.

Areas of Improvements:

3alarasi has a rewarding system that currently does not function, and I could not get much info about it from AbuLaila, but my take is that they should offer revenue sharing with the users who upload content on the website, and their best focus should be with cartoonist and creative producers across the Arab world, where 3alarasi should reach them and open dedicated channels for them on 3alarasi, so they can submit creative content from cartons to animations. And share with 3alarasi  their 3alarasi’s web site contents’ ad revenues, and the revenues from their MMS distributed content, in  which this would make 3alarasi the creative producers  socialnetwork platform in the Arab world.

3alarasi stats (according to ERUM):

According to  ERUM, 83% of the site viewers are coming from Middle East, and GCC (Arab Gulf Council ) countries, and its highest five ranks are in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Libya.

S ince early this year, 3alarasi.com has served over 5 million video views and over 4 million photo and caricature views for worldwide users.

And today 3alarasi.com is receiving over 12 thousand unique users per day, while new visitors to the website are increasing due to the continuous marketing campaigns on Google, Facebook and other networks and websites.

Other stats of 3alarasi.com according to ERUM study on Alexa

* Over 350,000 Unique Visitors per month.
* Over 1,200,000 Page views per month.
* Over 40% traffic from Jordan & Middle East.
* Over 33% traffic from GCC area.
* Subscribers are between 14 – 45 years Old.
* 70% are between 18 – 29 years Old.
* 56% males, 46% females.

Company Background:

3alarasi started 18 months ago for few content it produced which was distributed only via MMS to Zain Jordan subscribers, then to a website with cartoon content, produced by cartoonist Omar abdallat. The current new Beta version  started when Amer AbuLaila CTO joined the company for the IT development 9 months ago, According to Abulaila.

3alarasi is owned by ERUM Creative Productions L.L.C whose Founders are: Amer AbuLaila as CTO, cartoonist Omar Abdallat, writer Rajae Qawas, Fahed Oweidat as CEO.

3alarasi in Main Stream Arabic Media:

Yesterday 3alarasi was featured on BBC Arabic radio find the audio bellow (in Arabic )
While AbuLaila will be on Future TV (leanness Arabic Satellite Channel) 10 - 11 am (Jordan time +2GMT)

Besides 3alarasi, ERUM provides creative content via all media; they have created TV advertisements using their characters. They also have a daily show on Ramadan with Nourmina TV Arabic Satellite Channel from Jordan.  And started to broadcast their cartoons on other Arabic Satellite Channels, like Future TV, and soon on other popular TV Channels across the Arab world.

Press Release From Juniper Research.
HAMPSHIRE, UK: August 20th, 2008 – Mobile Search innovators, Google, have been selected by Juniper Research as the top award winner in the Future Mobile Awards - mobile search category.

The Future Mobile Awards are given to companies that have made a significant contribution to their sector and are poised to make considerable market impact in the future.  The gold award recognises Google as being a leading light in the development of the sector.

Dr Windsor Holden, panel judge and Principal Analyst at Juniper Research says, “Through the development of Google Mobile, Google has provided consumers with a user-friendly interface and applications which have successfully translated its appeal in the fixed environment into the mobile space. Furthermore, its release for the iPhone – integrating its multiple services into a single interface – has provided additional enhancements to the user experience.”

The awards were granted by a panel of expert judges based on a number of criteria, including: Innovation; Customer retention and growth; Commercial deployment; Ease of use/user interface; Revenue generation; Pricing (for services/products); and Capability/functionality. Gold and Silver awards were conferred for each category - Gold awarded to Google, and Silver to JumpTap - within the mobile search category.

Sara Rowghani, product marketing manager for Google’s mobile programmes in Europe, said “We’re excited to hear that our mobile search has been recognised by the Future Mobile awards 2008. We’re passionate about helping people find the information they need quickly and easily, wherever they are, and mobile search is an important part of that.”

Google provides a wide range of search, ads and apps products for both desktop PCs and mobiles. Stay connected on the go with Google Mail, Search, Maps and other Google products. To find out what products you can get on your phone, visit m.google.co.uk from your phone browser