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Riyadh Will Become Home To The Second Snap Creator Studio Globally
AR is expected to play a major role in making the metaverse come to life, and Snap could be an important player in the rapidly emerging successor to the internet.
Snap has announced that it will launch its second Snap Creator Studio in 2022, and the company chose Riyadh as its location.
The first Creator Studio was opened by Snap in Paris to support local creators in delivering experiences for Snapchat and provide publisher brands with a physical point of contact. The Riyadh location, the first of its kind in the region, will serve the same purpose.
Saudi Arabia was an easy choice for Snap because Snapchat has a monthly addressable reach of more than 19.5 million in the Kingdom, with 90 percent of its users being 13-34-year-olds, a demographic that advertisers see as highly attractive.
“The decision to open a Creator Studio in Saudi Arabia reflects the level of creativity we see on Snapchat amongst local users, the high levels of engagement on the app, and our desire to deepen the level of support that we can provide to the creator community and our business partners,” said Hussein Freijeh, General Manager for MENA at Snap.
Snap hopes that the Creator Studio will help attract talented content creators, Lens developers, and people interested in working on Snapchat Games, Minis, Layers, and other offerings. Drawing on its global network of creatives and technical experts, it will provide ample in-person and virtual skill-sharing opportunities.
“The new Creator Studio will thus help inspire the next generation of creators about the possibilities of using the Snap camera across the arts, education, media, and cultural sectors,” added Freijeh.
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Inspiring the next generation of Snap creators shouldn’t be too difficult because over 80 percent of consumers in Saudi Arabia already believe that Augmented Reality (AR) will be both useful and important in the next five years, according to Snap’s own data.
Several major tech companies have very recently announced their push towards the metaverse, most notably Meta and Microsoft. AR is expected to play a major role in making the metaverse come to life, and Snap could be an important player in the rapidly emerging successor to the internet.
News
Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power
Egypt’s telecom regulator says $57.6 billion moved through more than 57 million wallets in six months. And one operator handled 77% of the value.
Egypt’s mobile wallets handled EGP 2.96 trillion ($57.6 billion) in transactions in the first half of 2026, according to the National Telecom Regulatory Authority – a 56% rise on the EGP 1.90 trillion ($36.9 billion) recorded a year earlier. Transactions grew faster still, up 62% to 2.22 billion, while registered wallets climbed 23% to 57.01 million.
On one reading, that is exactly what Egypt’s regulators have been pushing for: a payments system that runs through telecom-linked wallets rather than banknotes. But the same data shows how far cash still reaches into it. Cash withdrawals made up just 12% of the transactions taking money out of wallets, yet 75% of the value withdrawn or spent.
Money arrives mostly from bank accounts: transfers through InstaPay accounted for 78% of deposit transactions and 58% of the value deposited, while incoming remittances from abroad made up 3% of deposit transactions but 10% of their value. Once inside, it largely moves between wallets – wallet-to-wallet transfers accounted for 54% of all transactions and 67% of total value, with mobile and internet top-ups a distant second at 25% of volume. In effect, the wallet is serving as a transfer layer: the place money passes through between the bank account and the banknote.
That layer also runs predominantly through one operator. Vodafone Cash held 53% of registered wallets and 57% of active ones, but handled 69% of transactions and 77% of their value. Its nearest rival, e& money, held 23% of registered wallets but 14% of transaction value; Orange Cash 20% and 8%; WE Pay 4% of wallets. How many of the 57.01 million are active is not stated.
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Adoption is rather uneven in other respects. Men held 38 million wallets, or 67% of the total, against 19 million held by women. Users aged 26 to 45 accounted for half of all wallets, and Cairo alone had 10.6 million, or 19% of the national total, with Giza next at 6.5 million.
The NTRA says it is continuing to work with telecom operators on the regulatory framework for wallet services, part of a wider effort to expand electronic payments and financial inclusion. Its own figures show that effort succeeding on the way in. On the way out, three-quarters of the value still leaves as cash.
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