Potential stocks in the Middle East! Qatar's e-commerce scale will exceed US$3.2 billion

As retailers and consumers flock to online platforms and people's demand for digital products and services increases, Qatar's e-commerce development is showing good momentum. According to the 2018 forecast of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the scale of Qatar's e-commerce will reach US$3.2 billion by 2022.

A recent report released by the Qatar Financial Centre shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted online sales in Qatar, prompting many retailers and consumers to switch to online platforms. Therefore, based on actual developments, this forecast data is likely to be exceeded.

Qatar is a peninsula extending northward from Saudi Arabia, surrounded by several islands, with a total area of ​​about 11,532 square kilometers. Compared with other Middle Eastern countries, Qatar's economic development level is above average, with a GDP of 175.84 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. However, Qatar's per capita GDP is very high, even exceeding that of many developed countries. According to data from the International Monetary Fund, Qatar's per capita GDP in 2019 was about 69,687 U.S. dollars, ranking fifth in the world.

At the same time, Qatar is also the country with the smallest gap between the rich and the poor in the Middle East. According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute's 2018 Global Wealth Report, Qatar's Gini coefficient is 61.5% , while the UAE and Saudi Arabia are 81.4% and 81% respectively (the Gini coefficient is an indicator of the fairness of annual income distribution. The smaller the Gini coefficient, the more evenly distributed the annual income ).

In a sense, Qataris are rich. Despite this, Qatar's e-commerce development is relatively slow, ranking only seventh in the MENA region. According to the Qatar Ministry of Communications, the average online transaction value in Qatar is $260, with electronic products and fashion products being the most popular categories .

In recent years, Qatar has been committed to developing local e-commerce. According to the public data on the official website of the Qatar Ministry of Communications, there are currently 431 registered e-commerce platforms in Qatar . The Ministry of Commerce and Industry also expressed the hope that stores and businesses will increase e-commerce services as much as possible and will fully support them.

However, local e-commerce platforms in Qatar are unable to meet consumer demand. A survey by the Qatar Ministry of Communications showed that 63% of respondents said that international e-commerce platforms have a richer variety of products, and they often have difficulty finding what they want on local e-commerce platforms in Qatar. At the same time, 52% of respondents felt that products on international e-commerce platforms are cheaper. Overall, Qatari consumers prefer shopping on international e-commerce platforms .

It is worth mentioning that Amazon UAE, Amazon Saudi, Amazon Egypt and Amazon Noon, the mainstream e-commerce platforms in the Middle East, are unable to ship to Qatar. This is probably due to the severance of diplomatic relations between Qatar and six countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on June 5, 2017. However, this tense relationship was finally broken on January 4 this year, when many countries in the Middle East restored diplomatic relations with Qatar. I believe that in the near future, Amazon, Souq and Noon will open the door to e-commerce in Qatar.

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