With a total B2C e-commerce turnover of $16.8bn in 2013, MENA was the smallest e-commerce region in the world in 2013. However, B2C sales of goods and services through the Internet did establish a growth of 30.3% compared to 2012, the second-highest growth rate behind Asia-Pacific. These are results revealed by the latest report on B2C e-commerce in MENA by our partner Ecommerce Europe.

Online sales in MENA expected to have reached $20.7 billion in 2014

The MENA region, including Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Israel, made up 1.1% of the global B2C e-commerce market in 2013, which represents a slight increase in comparison with 2012. For 2014, MENA’s online sales are estimated to have reached $20.7 billion, which means that it will have taken up about the same market share as in the preceding year.

UAE clearly in the lead

With a B2C e-commerce turnover of $6.3 billion, UAE was the largest e-commerce market of the MENA region in 2013. At some distance, Egypt ranked second with $3.8 billion, but for 2014, Egypt’s e-commerce turnover is estimated to have grown faster, as a result of which it is closing the gap with UAE.

In terms of B2C e-commerce turnover, Israel ($2.3 billion) ranked second, followed by Saudi Arabia ($1.7 billion), Qatar ($1.0 billion), Kuwait ($0.84 billion) and Jordan ($0.83 billion).

On average, e-shoppers from MENA spent $817 online in 2013

Ecommerce Europe’s research reveals that 20.6 million consumers in MENA bought goods and services online in 2013. On average, online consumers from MENA each spent $817 online in 2013. This is considerably lower than the global average of $1,331. At $2,100 per person, e-shoppers from UAE were the biggest spenders online, followed by those from Qatar ($1,439) and Jordan ($1,317).

In terms of Internet penetration, the MENA average of 7% in 2013 was slightly higher than the global average of 64.0%. Within the region, UAE was in the lead with 88.0% of its population being connected to the Internet. It was followed by Qatar with 85.3%, Kuwait (75.5%) and Israel (70.8%). It is interesting to see that the country with by the most inhabitants, Egypt, ranked among the countries with the lowest Internet penetration rates within the region (44.6%).

In addition to this MENA B2C E-commerce Report, the Ecommerce Foundation already published the Global, North America, Latin American, Asian-Pacific and BRICS B2C E-commerce Reports. All these reports are powered by GlobalCollect, Informatica, RichRelevance and Salesupply.