Souq.com has been dubbed the "Amazon of the Middle East": it is the largest e-commerce platform in the Arab world, averaging more than 39 million monthly visits. The site began as an auction site in 2005, under the internet portal, maktoob.com (later acquired by Yahoo!), and became a shopping site in 2011. It has since raised $425 million, the latest round in February 2016.
With the recent announcement of Amazon's purchase of souq.com, Similarweb's analysts took a look at trends related to the company's digital strategy in its core markets, in an attempt to shed light on some of the reasons behind this purchase.