WadiOnline News - Dubizzle Hits Top Gear With Capital Site

Dubizzle hits top gear with capital site

Publish Date: 2010-02-09 00:00:12 Story Code: 25119

Dubizzle, the classified advertising website, says it is growing at its fastest rate ever after launching a site targeting Abu Dhabi in the middle of last year.

More than 200,000 people last month visited the Abu Dhabi site and more than 2.3 million pages were viewed.

Usage is growing by more than 30 per cent each month. �It has been phenomenal growth in Abu Dhabi, much quicker than we ever saw in Dubai,� said JC Butler, the Dubizzle co-founder.

Founded in Dubai in 2005, Dubizzle grew to become Dubai�s largest online classifieds service and one of the UAE�s most successful internet start-ups. When the company launched a new site targeting Abu Dhabi, it assumed that users in the capital would immediately switch over. Instead, many continued to use the Dubai site due to the higher volume of advertising and users, forcing Dubizzle to treat the Abu Dhabi site as a start-up, rather than an extension of the existing service.

�That was unforeseen, because we didn�t expect we would have to start from scratch,� Mr Butler said. �But it made us revisit our roots a bit and refine how we build traffic from the ground up.�

With the new site now generating significant growth, he said Dubizzle planned to launch two services this year. The first will be an Arabic version of the service, while the second will involve expanding into GCC markets such as Qatar, where the company sees similar opportunities to those in the UAE.

�In terms of a competitor that competes across the board against us and tries to take market share, there really isn�t one,� Mr Butler said.

© The National 2010. All rights reserved.

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Source: The National
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