Google are set to expand its offerings in Saudi Arabia in an effort to increase the amount of Arabic language content available on the internet, in a bid to provide for the millions of native Arabic speakers.
According to The National online, Google are targeting growth in Saudi Arabia using a team of dedicated staff, including Saudi nationals. Lino Cattarizzi, managing director for Google in the MENA region, told The National that Google are “going deep into enabling the digital transformation of Saudi Arabia with a multi-year, multi-project initiative.”
The team will be based in Dubai, where Google have their regional headquarters, but they will assist and oversee business opportunities throughout the entire kingdom over the next few months in order to devise a package of initiatives, which will then be instigated and employed, over the coming years.
This new incentive is in accordance with Vision 2030, the kingdom’s economic diversification efforts, which, alongside Saudi Arabia’s 2020 National Transformation Plan (2016), will aim to increase internet users in the region from 63.7% to 85%.
With an estimated 400 million Arabic speakers globally, the rise in users accessing the internet in their native tongue has increased from 58% to 78% in 2017, which has propelled Google to ramp up their efforts to improve Arabic accessibility online. Google search queries, YouTube, social media sites and other platforms are being targeted to forge improved links between Arabic news publishers, advertisers and end users.
“The majority of Arabs in Mena do not speak English and do not query [via Google Search] in English,” said Mr Cattaruzzi.
“One of the things we are doing as a top priority is to get Arabic presence and content at the core of our engagement in the region.”
With the exception of UAE (where English is widely spoken), most of the Google search queries received daily within MENA are submitted in Arabic, although exact figures are not known.
Mr Cattaruzzi explained that “We are trying to make sure that the quality of our query replies in Arabic is on a par with the replies we get in other languages.” He states that Google are utilising a triple-pronged strategy to increase the quality and volume of Arabic content available online.
One part of this strategy is the encouragement of Arabic YouTube channels such as Google’s Aflam and Mosalsalat, which combined, have added over 13,000 hours of Arabic content to YouTube, including TV shows and movies.
Google’s 11th global “YouTube Space”, which offers training and production facilities, will open in Dubai Studio City, targeting YouTube content creators wishing to produce Arabic content. It is expected that this studio will create a surge in the proportion of Arabic productions.
The second part of the strategy is Google’s (MENA region) desire to connect Arabic language content creators with advertisers in a bid to build revenue-generating digital platforms. “If the content creators can get more revenues [from advertising], they can produce even more content,” said Mr Cattaruzzi.
The third element of the strategy is to provide Arabic news publishers with data-driven insight, skills and abilities to more effectively distribute digital content and capitalise their businesses.
Google haven’t revealed their revenue from digital advertising for MENA, or elsewhere, however, the company has seen exponential growth in the region due to improved e-commerce possibilities, and sophisticated advertising strategies.
Also, Google’s artificial intelligence-based Machine Learning technology is updating Google Translate services at a phenomenal speed, including Arabic languages. There are also more than 17,000 books in Arabic on the Google Play Store, according to the company.
This predicted expansion into Arabic speaking markets by Google can only be viewed as massive progress for Arabic language users, not just in MENA, but also globally.
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