News

Dubai Is Building A New Mall In The Metaverse

The virtual shopping center will set a new standard for immersive online shopping experiences.

Published

3 years ago

February 16, 2023

dubai is building a new mall in the metaverse

The metaverse still feels like a distant and obscure concept for average consumers. However, for leading brands, this parallel digital universe is already worth investing in, and retailers are building out virtual stores as quickly as possible.

Retail group Majid Al Futtaim has taken metaverse retail to its next logical progression, unveiling the “Mall of the Metaverse” in Decentraland to compliment its brick-and-mortar outlet.

Customers will be able to engage with “immersive retail experiences” in the new virtual mall, where various brands, including Carrefour, VOX Cinemas, THAT Concept Store, Ghawali, and Samsung Store, will soon set up for business.

vox cinema mall of the metaverse dubai

Khalifa bin Braik, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Asset Management, is confident that the Mall of the Metaverse “will become a prominent retail and entertainment destination for customers who seek digital experiences from their favorite brands.”

magic planet mall of the metaverse dubai

Meanwhile, Fatima Zada, the director of Omnichannel and Digital, Majid Al Futtaim Shopping Malls, notes an increase in demand for digital experiences, with his team using “behavioral science and data” to plan a retail future that eclipses simple online shopping.

Also Read: Introducing Bard, Google’s Response To ChatGPT

Dubai has already made significant progress in metaverse development, and last year, the Dubai Mall unveiled a digital version of its Etisalat store. These announcements collectively aid the city’s metaverse strategy, which hopes to create 40,000 jobs and bring $4 billion to the economy over the next five years.

News

Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

6 days ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

Also Read: Shokz OpenFit Pro Review: Open-Ear Audio Finally Grows Up

For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.