Yahoo will no longer have a physical presence in the MIddle East come the following April. The company, which had once been a behemoth pioneering the commercial web in the 1990s has since been overtaken by Google, Facebook and others, said it had no plans to sell its core business, as some investors had hoped, but the move effectively invites offers for the new entity.
In the Middle East, Yahoo once hired a total of 400 people spread across its Amman, Cairo and Dubai offices, with the Dubai offices employing a total of 200 people at one point. However as the company failed to keep itself relevant, the offices in Amman and Cairo were closed down, the Dubai offices slashed their numbers from 200 to 50 employees and now to 0. The news about the closure comes amidst mounting pressure for its global CEO Marrisa Myers to quit as Yahoo continues to fall behind other internet giants such as Alphabet’s Google and Facebook.
Yahoo however is adamant about providing services in the MIddle East.
“Today we informed our Dubai-based employees that we’ve made the difficult decision to close the office by the end of April as a part of Yahoo’s effort to streamline our business and set the company up for long-term growth. We are incredibly grateful for our employees’ hard work and contribution.We will continue to provide our suite of consumer services in Arabic and English and our advertising inventory through Yahoo marketplaces and other advertising exchanges.”
– Yahoo statement.
Yahoo first entered the region in 2009, following the acquisition of Maktoob.com for an undisclosed amount. Initial speculation put the sum at around $80 million, though other reports said the total was close to around $165 million.
Yahoo is valued at around $32 billion though the bulk of that is due to its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding; the stake is worth more than $30 billion.
