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Amazon Boosts E-commerce Reach With Saudi Arabia Shopping Site

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Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) recently launched its shopping site in Saudi Arabia in a bid to expand e-commerce business in the country.

The new website Amazon.sa is the rebranded portal of Souq.com. Notably, Souq, which was acquired by Amazon in 2017, operates an e-commerce platform in the Middle East.

The popularity of Souq.com and its huge customer base are likely to benefit Amazon’s business in Saudi Arabia.

Further, the latest move bodes well for the company’s aggressive efforts toward expanding its online retail business globally, which have been aiding its dominance in the booming e-commerce market.

Moreover, the company’s leading position in this particular market has been driving the topline and instilling investor confidence in the stock.

Coming to the price performance, Amazon has returned 43% on a year-to-date basis, outperforming the industry’s rally of 31.8%.



 

Strengthening E-commerce Footprint in Middle East

The latest move is in sync with the company’s constant efforts toward expanding e-commerce footprint in the Middle East.

With the launch of Amazon.sa, the company is well-poised to capitalize on prospects present in the Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce market.

Additionally, Amazon’s 14 warehouses and a workforce of more than 1,400 people remains encouraging. Its delivery partnership with Saudi Post is also a major positive. Further, the company is building operations network, which remains noteworthy.

Per a report from Statista, this particular market is expected to generate revenues worth $6.1 billion in 2020. Further, the figure is expected to hit $7.9 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 7.1% over a period of 2020 to 2024. Further, the user penetration rate is anticipated to hit 73.5% in 2020 and reach 91.2% by 2024.

In fact, Amazon had forayed into the e-commerce space of United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year by launching its shopping website —Amazon.ae, which is also the rebranded portal of Souq.com.

Additionally, it introduced Prime services in UAE to deliver better shopping experience to customers on the heels of its free next day delivery services.

These efforts will continue to help the company in rapidly penetrating the e-commerce market of UAE. Notably, per a report from Statista, the country’s market is expected to generate revenues worth $5.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to see a CAGR of 16.2% between 2020 and 2024 to reach $9.7 billion by 2024.

Expanding Asian Presence

Amazon is aggressively eyeing the Asian market. The abovementioned endeavors are testament to this fact.

It is leaving no stone unturned to bolster presence in this particular market. Apart from the Middle East initiatives, the company has made noteworthy efforts in India this year.

The company made an announcement of investing$1 billion in India with an aim of building digital centers in 100 cities and villages of the country.

The proposed digital centers are likely to help more than 10 million small and medium businesses to come online, which in turn, will expand their customer exposure. Moreover, this will help Amazon in strengthening the e-commerce business in India by expanding the seller base and product offerings.

We believe all these strong efforts will continue to help the company in capitalising on growth opportunities present in the Asian e-commerce space, which is riding on the increasing Internet and smartphone user penetration rate.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Currently, Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the retail-wholesale sector are JD.com, Inc. (JD - Free Report) , Wayfair Inc. (W - Free Report) and eBay Inc. (EBAY - Free Report) . All the three stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Long-term EPS growth for JD.com, Wayfair and eBay is currently pegged at 46.79%, 23.04% and 12.78%, respectively.

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This young company’s gigantic growth was hidden by low-volume trading, then cut short by the coronavirus. But its digital products stand out in a region where the internet economy has tripled since 2015 and looks to triple again by 2025.

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