Noon is set to go live in UAE next week, KSA launch delayed: sources

Update – Aug 17, 2017: We’ve learned that the company has extended its beta to all its employees now but the website is not live for public yet. The beta is currently IP restricted and can be accessed by company’s employees on live.noon.com. It cannot be considered a delay though as Noon never announced 15th August as its official launch date. With the extended beta in place, it looks like that its now a matter of few weeks only but we’d rather wait for an official announcement this time.

Update – Aug 13, 2017: A spokesperson from Noon has responded to our request for a comment:

“Noon reiterates that it will commence operation later this year. More details will be announced in due course.”

Noon, the ecommerce portal backed by Emirati real-estate tycoon Mohamed Alabbar is set to go live on August 15 in UAE, we have learned. However for unknown reason the launch for Saudi has been delayed once again, our source tell us.

Announced in November last year, it was supposed to go live in January earlier this year but due to different reasons, the launch was delayed more than once. The venture has been in all sorts of trouble with tens of its employees leaving or made to leave. This includes three executives as well including company’s CEO Fodhil Benturquia, CTO Omar Kassim who was hired after the Alabbar’s acquisition of JadoPado and HR Head Joumana Hathouth.

Faraz Khalid who is Co-Founder & former MD of Namshi had joined Noon as CEO, Alabbar confirmed few days after we first reported the news. It came after Alabbar had acquired 51% stake in Namshi.

When the website was announced last year, claims were made about it having inventory of 20 million products when it goes live and that it will offer delivery within 3 hours for some of these products. However with all the uncertainty around Noon and its launch, this seems like an impossible feat for now.

The August 15 launch date was also reported by Omar Kassim on his personal blog, last month.