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Amazon Is Planning To Create Over 1,500 Jobs In Saudi Arabia
E-commerce giant, Amazon, has recently announced its plan to open 11 brand new buildings across Saudi Arabia. Once all the new buildings are opened, which should happen by the end of 2021, they will create over 1,500 new jobs.
Right now, Amazon has three warehouses in Saudi Arabia, referred to as fulfillment centers, located in Riyadh and Jeddah. With the planned buildings, Amazon’s total floor area is supposed to reach 867,000 square feet, or about 80,000 square meters.
Amazon wants to enhance its storage capacity by 89 percent and its geographical delivery network by 58 percent to better cope with the growing demand for its services in the region. In addition to building new facilities, the company will also upgrade existing ones to enable faster, smarter, and more consistent deliveries of products to customers.
“These new investments reiterate our commitment to Saudi Arabia, contributing to the local economy through the creation of new job opportunities,” said Prashant Saran, Amazon’s Middle East and North Africa director of operations.
“Our investments in technology and infrastructure align with Saudi’s digital transformation goals, enabling world-class fulfillment offerings to our independent seller partners, and faster delivery on an expanded product selection to our customers,” Saran added.
Amazon is among the biggest winners of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its net profit increased by 84 percent to $21.3 billion as revenue grew 38 percent to $386.1 billion. In January of this year, the company launched its Amazon Prime service in Saudi Arabia, offering many convenient perks to Saudi shoppers, including free same-day and next-day delivery.
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A small survey of nearly 1,000 Saudi shoppers conducted by advertising platform Criteo last year found that 58 percent of Saudis now prefer online shopping to in-store shopping, and 35 percent see the cost of shipping as a big factor in their decision-making process.
With the new facilities, Amazon will be ready to expand its presence in the region even further to meet customers’ growing expectations.
News
Noon And Yango Switch On Robot Deliveries In Dubai
The rollout folds autonomous couriers into noon’s rapid-delivery network as the UAE tests everyday autonomy.
Noon and Yango Group have signed an agreement to put autonomous robot deliveries into commercial use in Dubai, turning Yango’s earlier pilots into a daily service for noon Minutes orders. The launch in Sobha Hartland is the first full integration of Yango Autonomy’s electric robots with a major e-commerce network in the region, with wider deployment planned across Dubai and, later, other GCC markets.
Residents can choose a robot at checkout, track it in the app and unlock its compartment once it arrives. The hardware runs on Yango’s AI navigation and routing stack, which plans paths, avoids obstacles and yields to pedestrians. The units had already covered more than 1,500 kilometers during previous Dubai pilots, a test bed that demonstrated their ability to operate in mixed pedestrian environments and dense residential streets.
The rollout adds a contactless option to noon’s last-mile network and is positioned as extra capacity during peak periods. “Partnering with Yango Group lets us bring a future-ready delivery option straight to our customers,” said Ali Kafil-Hussain, noon’s Chief Business Officer. Noon has used Minutes to set rapid-delivery expectations in UAE cities; autonomous units now slot into that same high-frequency model.
Regulatory clearance from Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority underpins the move. The RTA authorized Yango’s robots to operate on public walkways and in neighborhoods, smoothing the shift from controlled trials to commercial work. Dubai has framed autonomous mobility as part of its smart-city buildout, and the partners lean on that agenda to accelerate integration.
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For Yango, the partnership is an anchor for its autonomy platform in the Gulf. Islam Abdul Karim, Yango’s Middle East regional head, said the aim is to make autonomous delivery an “everyday, reliable service” for UAE communities. The company views operational data from early districts as the basis for scaling into more communities and, eventually, cross-border rollouts.
The move lands as Gulf retailers search for faster fulfilment and lower-emission logistics. Autonomous couriers remain a small share of last-mile delivery, but Dubai’s approvals and early usage data give the partners a clearer path to turn pilots into durable infrastructure.
