Opontia: Enabling e-commerce brands to go global
Philip Johnston and Manfred Meyer, co-founders of Opontia
The GCC region is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the world according to a report from Dubai’s CommerCity, with online sales set to treble by 2022. US-based consultancy firm AT Kearney predicts the region’s e-commerce sector will grow from $29 billion this year to $50 billion by 2025. While the sector continues to see higher adoption of online shopping among consumers, for UAE-based e-commerce enabler Opontia, which acquires e-commerce brands and helps them grow, the sector still has a long way to go.
“The e-commerce industry in the region is slightly less mature than it is in the US and Europe and Southeast Asia, but it s growing much faster,” says Philip Johnston, co-founder of Opontia. For example, Noon only has an assortment of two million products across both UAE and KSA. Whereas lazada, for example in Malaysia, had 15 million products at the
A look at the subscriptions-based economy in the Middle East
Digitisation has become the mainstay of the coronavirus pandemic, shifting both consumer and business behaviour. Amid this trend, the subscriptions economy has boomed, offering its users convenience and reliability.
Globally, the subscriptions economy has remained resilient, benefiting from the pandemic and the ongoing lockdowns in various parts of the world. According to Zuora, 50 per cent of all subscription companies are growing just as fast as they were before the pandemic while 18 per cent are seeing subscriber growth rates accelerate.
The findings highlighted the unique challenges of the sector, consumer preferences and the areas of growth.