Frankly Speaking: ‘The future of retail is both physical and digital – phygital’, says MAF CEO Alain Bejjani

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Updated 29 November 2021
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Frankly Speaking: ‘The future of retail is both physical and digital – phygital’, says MAF CEO Alain Bejjani

  • Head of conglomerate appears on Frankly Speaking, the series of video interviews with business people and policymakers
  • Bejjani gives his opinion on the economies of Saudi Arabia and UAE, whose resilience is being tested by the pandemic

DUBAI: Business in Saudi Arabia and the UAE is “buzzing,” Alain Bejjani, chief executive officer of the Majid Al Futtaim diversified conglomerate, told Arab News, even as the resilience of their economies is being tested by the pandemic’s unexpected twists and turns.

He gave his opinion on the state of recovery from last year’s coronavirus lockdowns on Frankly Speaking, the series of video interviews with leading business people and policymakers in the Middle East and the world.

“Saudi Arabia (has shown) great resilience during the pandemic, but actually Saudi Arabian measures (to halt the spread of the virus) were quite different from the ones that you have seen in the other markets. I’ve been there in the past few months more than three times and you (can) see that it’s buzzing. It’s coming back,” Bejjani said.

“The UAE had remarkable resilience in 2020 and now is buzzing across the board. We’ve had an excellent second half of the year, especially the third quarter and the fourth quarter that we are in, and basically things are off to a very good start in 2022.”

Business in Egypt is also on a recovery path, he said.

Bejjani has been at the helm of MAF since 2015, consolidating the group’s position as one of the leading retail, hospitality and leisure groups in the Middle East. MAF is well known by consumers throughout the region for its Carrefour supermarkets, its gigantic shopping malls and its Vox Cinemas chain.




Alain Bejjani, CEO of the Majid Al Futtaim group

In the course of a wide-ranging discussion, Bejjani also spoke about the way the pandemic had changed MAF, his plans to give cinema a big boost in the Middle East, and the sustainability of MAF’s businesses, which include a ski-slope in Dubai and another one — set to be the biggest in the world — in the under-construction Mall of Saudi in Riyadh.

On the pace of the post-pandemic economic recovery, Bejjani explained that there could be a financial “hit” to MAF this year, because consumption patterns had changed from online back to in-person retailing.

“So, 2021 was difficult and not 2020. Last year was a difficult year to be able to fulfill and to be able to serve the customers in the safety of their homes, and navigate through the very strict restrictions that we had to deal with because of the pandemic.

“But in 2021 when we had less restrictions or no restrictions, people could go back to stores, the actual consumption changed because people were consuming less. They were not at home anymore as much as they were,” he said.

He said that a full recovery across the board might not come until 2024, adding: “We are in multi-industries and some industries have recovered while others have not yet recovered. So, when you look at our overall results, they are affected by the ones that haven’t recovered yet.”


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How Majid Al Futtaim is getting to grips with the coronavirus ‘tsunami’


Elaborating on the topic, Bejjani said: “For example, the cinema business and the L&E (leisure and entertainment) business — this is a business that’s recovering slower than others and is now actually affected by supply-chain issues.

“When you look at the cinema business, this is a business that was really affected in 2021 not only by the limitations on occupancy, but also by the fact of the unavailability of movies because of production delays and all the supply-chain issues that were triggered by the pandemic.”

In Saudi Arabia, where MAF has been expanding rapidly over the past five years, growth was being spurred by the reform strategy of the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy, according to Bejjani.

“What’s happened in Saudi Arabia in the past five years is a blessing. Everyone was dreaming to have Saudi Arabia open up; to have Saudi Arabia come back; to actually become a vibrant and even more vibrant economy, a more inclusive economy; to get women back into the workforce and also into a role in society; to get entertainment back into the Kingdom,” he said.

MAF’s most prestigious project to date in the Kingdom is the Mall of Saudi, a $4.3 billion retail and leisure complex under construction in north Riyadh, due to open in 2025. Bejjani is confident that “mall culture” will overcome the challenges thrown up by the pandemic, but that the lockdowns will change the nature of the business in significant ways.




Frank Kane hosts Frankly Speaking: Watch more episodes.

“This is, of course, for us a very important, substantial investment and a very strategic project. We’re doing it because we really believe in the future of retail and we really believe that the future of retail is both physical and digital. There is this new word now that’s coined, it’s called ‘phygital,’ and we are seeing that more and more.

“Malls are not only spaces where you actually transact, where you actually shop for something. It’s a place where people come together. It’s a place where people meet. It’s a place where friends and family spend time and create great moments together. Of course they shop, dine or consume entertainment, but also build bonds. This is what malls’ new roles are,” he said.

The Mall of Saudi will be home to the biggest ski-slope and snow dome in the world. Some environmentalists have questioned the building of gigantic indoor snow-park facilities in the Middle East, especially as concerns grow about climate change.

But Bejjani is adamant that the new ski center in Riyadh will comply with the strictest environmental and energy regulations, like Ski Dubai in the UAE does. “There is a lot of misconception around indoor ski slopes,” he said.

“If you look at Mall of the Emirates’ Ski Dubai or the one that you’re going to be having in our Riyadh project, these are actually LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified assets.

“It actually has been improving quite a lot. We’ve been putting a lot of technology and investment in order to make it as sustainable as possible. So, when you look at the actual slope, it is within a fridge that preserves heat and preserves cold, so minimizes the heat going out and preserves cold inside. And we have a lot of technology to make sure that we actually use the least electricity possible and generate and have the lowest possible carbon footprint.”


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Majid Al-Futtaim chief kicks off “humungous” Mall of Saudi project


One part of the business set for big growth is the Vox Cinemas chain, which pursued an aggressive roll-out of new venues after the ban on cinemas in Saudi Arabia was lifted in 2018, only to be shut later by the pandemic. Bejjani says he is confident Vox can win business back from the at-home streaming services like Netflix that did so well during the lockdowns.

“People love the experience. Cinema is an experience that you share with others and there is nothing like the magic of being in a theater and people laughing together and living those emotions together,” he said.

Consumers had “maxxed out” on Netflix during the lockdown phase, he added.

One challenge MAF is planning to confront head on is the lack of new content, and specifically regional content, in the Middle East movie industry. Shutdowns in Hollywood and Bollywood studios during the pandemic meant a shortage of new material for movie-goers.

“Saudi Arabia is a fantastic market for local content, whether it’s Arabic content, whether it’s Khaliji or Egyptian content, and this is where we need and we are driving a lot of effort to make sure that we enable that local content much more,” he said.

Vox is sponsoring the forthcoming Red Sea Film Festival as a way to demonstrate its commitment to creating a regional production and distribution network to raise the level of local content in cinema.

“We have a huge market with a lot of young and not-so-young cultural-product consumers that want local content,” Bejjani said. “This is how we can contribute to the rebirth of our civilization, and the rebirth of the cultural life in our part of the world.”


State of the Saudi media sector and investment opportunities it offers

Updated 04 May 2025
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State of the Saudi media sector and investment opportunities it offers

RIYADH: The General Authority for Media Regulation has released a report, “The State of the Saudi Media Sector and Investment Opportunities for 2024,” which provides an overview of the media landscape in the Kingdom and highlights the significant transformations the sector is undergoing to keep pace with Saudi Vision 2030.

The report reflects promising investment opportunities, in addition to the technical and regulatory shifts that support the growth and sustainability of the sector. It also illustrates the magnitude of the boom in the Saudi media sector, which has achieved remarkable development driven by digital transformation and technological advance, improving the efficiency of media content and enhancing its global competitiveness.

The media authority’s estimates in the report indicate that the contribution of the media sector to the direct and indirect gross domestic product increased to 0.57 per cent in 2024, amounting to SAR16 billion ($4.26 billion), compared with 0.52 per cent in 2023.

The authority continues to work towards achieving its ambitious goals of raising this percentage to 0.8 percent by 2030. In terms of investment in human capital, job growth reached 67,000 jobs, with a rate of 22 percent by the end of 2024, with the aim of reaching 160,000 jobs by 2030.

The report also identified six key transformations in the media industry in the Kingdom, including the increasing demand for local content, developing media infrastructure, adopting modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality, improving the regulatory environment, supporting national talents and competencies, and expanding investment opportunities.

The report confirms that the Kingdom has become a prominent destination for media investment, providing a flexible regulatory environment and mega-projects aimed at enhancing the media industry.

It also addressed the opportunities available to investors in content production, the development of electronic games, investment in media infrastructure, and international partnerships in the Saudi media market. In addition, the continued innovation and adoption of modern technologies to enhance the competitiveness of Saudi media globally is a crucial factor because the sector has elements that make it one of the main drivers of economic and cultural development in the Kingdom.

The report details the opportunities and challenges in the sector and covers the five media divisions supervised by the General Authority for Media Regulation: publishing; audio; visual; advertising; and games sectors.

The authority, through the report, hopes to improve understanding of the local media landscape and provide clear and accurate data to media entities and local and international investors, to highlight the promising opportunities in the sector.

The report is a comprehensive reference for the state of media in the Kingdom and is provides a guide for local and international investors and researchers in the sector. The authority urges interested partis to view the report on its website at https://gmedia.gov.sa/ar/media-status-report


Algerian TV channel suspended for racism against African migrants

Echorouk News TV. (X @echoroukonline)
Updated 03 May 2025
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Algerian TV channel suspended for racism against African migrants

  • Since the start of April, Algeria has expelled some 5,000 Africans to neighbouring Niger, according to state television. About half were from Niger

ALGIERS: Algerian authorities on Friday suspended broadcasts by a television news channel for 10 days after it used a racist word on social media to describe African migrants.
Echorouk News TV used the derogatory word in a Facebook post after police raids in which migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were detained.
The ANIRA broadcasting authority called the publication "extremely serious".
The report contained "a racist and discriminatory term, an attack on human dignity, conveying hate speech against a category of people because of their race," said ANIRA which demanded that the channel's management make an official apology.
Tens of thousands of undocumented African migrants have used Algeria as a staging post to attempt to get to Europe. Many have sought jobs in the North African country.
Since the start of April, Algeria has expelled some 5,000 Africans to neighbouring Niger, according to state television. About half were from Niger.
 

 


Eurovision lifts ban on Palestinian flags as scrutiny of Israel’s participation grows

Updated 02 May 2025
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Eurovision lifts ban on Palestinian flags as scrutiny of Israel’s participation grows

  • Fans will now be allowed to bring and display any flag that does not contain racist content, hate symbols
  • Iceland, Spain and Slovenia have all raised concerns about Israel’s participation at this year’s contest

LONDON: Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have lifted a ban on Palestinian flags for audience members, but maintained restrictions for participating artists, as pressure over Israel’s inclusion in this year’s event increased.

The change, confirmed by Danish broadcaster DR, marks a shift from the European Broadcasting Union’s longstanding rule prohibiting flags from non-competing countries and territories. That policy led to Palestinian flags being banned in previous years.

According to updated guidelines obtained by DR, fans will now be allowed to bring and display any flag that does not contain “racist and/or discriminatory content,” or symbols thought to incite hatred, violence, or linked to banned organizations.

In a statement to CNN, the EBU said the update seeks to “strike a balance to ensure that our audiences and artists can express their enthusiasm and identities,” while offering greater clarity for national delegations.

However, the relaxed policy applies only to the audience. Participating artists will still be restricted to displaying official national flags in all official Eurovision spaces, including the stage, green room, and Eurovision Village. Artists may show only the flag of the country they represent.

The revised policy comes amid growing criticism of Israel’s participation in this year’s contest to be held in Basel, Switzerland, with semifinals on May 13 and 15 and the final on May 17.

Officials in countries including Slovenia, Spain and Iceland have questioned Israel’s inclusion.

Icelandic Foreign Minister Porgerour Katrin Gunnarsdottir told a local outlet she found it “strange and actually unnatural that Israel is allowed to participate,” accusing the country of committing “war crimes” and “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

Despite these objections, the EBU has confirmed that Israel’s entry meets the competition’s rules. As with last year, large-scale protests are expected in Basel against Israel’s participation.

Despite pressure from pro-Israel organizations, Swiss authorities said demonstrations are permitted in principle, including those opposing Israel’s presence, provided they comply with public safety regulations.


Spotify, EA Sports test in-game music integration in Saudi Arabia

Updated 01 May 2025
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Spotify, EA Sports test in-game music integration in Saudi Arabia

  • Players in Kingdom can now link their account directly with video game

LONDON: Spotify and EA Sports have launched a pilot project that allows players to link their Spotify accounts directly with the EA Sports FC 25 video game.

The feature is being rolled out in Saudi Arabia and selected other markets.

The project, which was announced on Thursday, enables Spotify Premium users to log in via a new tab in the main game menu and control music playback during gameplay, including during team selection or from the pause menu.

The Swedish music platform said the partnership aimed at offering players more control over their in-game audio.

It said: “Long seen as the perfect companion to gaming, music boosts focus, amplifies adrenaline, and heightens the emotional highs of every match.

“Through this collaboration, players can now curate their perfect in-game soundtrack, listening to the artists they love.”

Podcast access and curated playlists will also be available.

The feature is currently accessible to Premium users playing EA Sports FC 25 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in Saudi Arabia and Australia.

The Kingdom has become a growing market for gaming and electronic sports, driven by a young and tech-savvy population.

Gaming now plays a prominent role in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 diversification strategy, with plans for the sector to contribute more than $13 billion to the economy and create tens of thousands of jobs, according to Savvy Games Group.

Riyadh hosted the inaugural Esports World Cup last summer, a large-scale tournament featuring 23 events across major titles including Fortnite, Call of Duty, and EA Sports FC, with a record-setting prize pool of $62.5 million.


Jeddah communication conference explores anime’s digital evolution

Updated 01 May 2025
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Jeddah communication conference explores anime’s digital evolution

  • The session focused on anime’s shift from traditional television broadcasts and DVDs to digital platforms, including live streaming, instant subtitling and cloud-based production

RIYADH: The eighth session of the Digital Communication Conference, titled “Anime in the Digital Space,” explored the transformation of Japanese anime over the past two decades, highlighting the impact of digital innovation and the internet.

According to Saudi Press Agency, the session focused on anime’s shift from traditional television broadcasts and DVDs to digital platforms, including live streaming, instant subtitling and cloud-based production.

Streaming giants such as Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Funimation were highlighted as pivotal players in the transition, offering translated or dubbed episodes immediately upon release and funding original series such as “Devilman Crybaby” and “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.”

Speakers in the session, including Manga Productions CEO Essam Bukhary, said that social media and online forums have opened the door to unprecedented engagement among fans, as well as community and cultural interaction, since audiences now take part in evaluating episodes.

Concerns were raised that heavy dependence on technology could erode the handcrafted aesthetic that defines traditional anime.

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning interest in manga and anime, which dates back to the 1970s, is helping to usher in a revolution in cultural production.

Japanese art forms have captivated audiences of all ages, gaining significant popularity in recent years. Their ability to combine entertainment, culture and education has made them of great interest to Saudi society.

To support this interest, the General Entertainment Authority has hosted events like the Saudi Anime Expo, drawing international visitors.

In line with these efforts, the ministries of culture and education launched the Manga Education program to nurture student talent, as well as integrate arts and culture into public education.