Google deepens its investment in the MENA region

The new operation enables Google to better serve its Arabic-speaking users, advertisers, and partners in Egypt and throughout the MENA region.

The launch of the Google Egypt office highlights Google's ongoing commitment to its international users and the search advertising industry in emerging markets and the drive towards creating an environment for economic growth in the region.

'MENA is a region with 300M people, speaking the same language. We hope our products, and the Internet as a whole, will bring useful and beneficial tools to our Arabic users. We can see potential for industries like tourism and travel which are important to Egypt's economy' said Nikesh Arora, President, Google EMEA Operations. 'We are pleased to open our latest office in Egypt, where we can draw from the highest quality talent and further help our users find the information they're looking for, and at the same time, help local and regional businesses succeed.'

Committed to making the world's information accessible and useful, Google has launched many products in the Arabic language in the region in the last 18 months. Google News™ in Arabic, Gmail™ Arabic with capacity of more than 2.5 GB, and the spell check 'did you mean' feature and Google Earth in Arabic™ are among Google's products and feature which allow Arabic customers and users to make the most of the Internet.

'We selected Egypt as the location for our regional hub because of the relatively high level of internet usage here -- there are 5.9M internet users in Egypt. We also want to help increase those numbers in Egypt and in the Middle East and North. Africa' said Sherif Iskander, Regional Manager, Google Middle East and North Africa. 'According to Madar Research, by 2010 there could be approximately 12.4 million internet users in Egypt, 8.5 million in Saudi Arabia and 2.5 million in United Arab Emirates,' added Iskander.