Regional e-commerce not unnerved by war

Both MSN Arabia and SmarterWin believe regional e commerce holds the promise of tremendous growth, and new opportunities for business to expand their markets.

In 2002 the total world trade through Internet was estimated to be US$ 2,293.5 billion. This is expected to grow to US$ 12,837.3 billion by 2006. Arab trade in 2001 exceeded US$ 250 billion, out of which US$ 400 million online sales were carried out online in B2B and B2C sectors. A substantial portion of this online business is via banking. Projections for Arab trade online are 3 billion US$ for 2003.

SmarterWin.com offers the most competitively priced web services package in the Middle East and the company reports the response rate has been growing strength to strength since it recently began cooperation with MSN Arabia.
In an additional sign of SmarterWin's continued expansion, the company revealed that talks had been started with leading banks to offer bank customers special direct debit facilities when purchasing SmarterWin.com's web packages.

Amr El-Messidi of MSN Arabia commented that the exclusive online campaign on MSN Arabia for SmarterWin.com has generated more than 85% click through rates (CTR), far exceeding Arab world CTR averages, which are already high compared to global averages. MSN Arabia are in the process of building this campaign as a case study to be shared with other MSN portals around the world, and are keen on keeping the averages high as the SmarterWin.com campaign continues.

"The response to our services has been great and we have launched a member get member bonus scheme to reward our rapidly growing customer base. The number of regional Internet users is expected to grow another 270% over the next three years. One million new users are expected to get on line in the next two years," noted Mario Samaha, Managing Director of SmarterWin. ENDS.