Apple and Amazon have opened discussions with Riyadh on investing in Saudi Arabia, which forms part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s push to give the conservative kingdom a high-tech look.
Amazon’s discussions are being led by cloud computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS), which would introduce stiff competition in a market currently dominated by smaller local providers like STC and Mobily.
Amazon’s talks are in earlier stages and no specific date has been set for investment plans, said two sources familiar with the discussions.
A licensing agreement for Apple stores with SAGIA Saudi Arabia’s foreign investment authority is expected by February, with an initial retail store targeted for 2019, they said.
According to market researcher Euromonitor, Apple already holds second place in the Saudi mobile phone market behind Samsung.
Amazon acquired Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com earlier in 2017, opening access for Amazon retail goods to be sold in the kingdom.
Both companies already sell products in Saudi Arabia via third parties but they and other global companies are yet to establish a direct presence.
They both declined to comment, while SAGIA was not immediately available to answer questions about the discussions.
Prince Mohammed is an avowed technophile and has styled himself a disrupter in the model of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.
During an official visit to the United States last year, he met executives at Facebook, Microsoft and Uber, in which the sovereign wealth fund he chairs later took a $3.5 billion stake.
Since then, he has also set up a $45 billion technology investment fund with Japan’s SoftBank and announced plans to create a futuristic $500 billion mega-city with more robots than humans.
Apple and Amazon have both been on a Saudi priority list of foreign firms which officials hope to attract to further their reforms.
Luring Apple and Amazon would further Prince Mohammed’s reform plans and raise the companies’ profile in a young and relatively affluent market, which already boasts some of the highest internet and smartphone use in the world.
About 70 percent of the Saudi population is under 30 and frequently glued to social media.
