Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite tablet. Patrick Fallon / Bloomberg
Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite tablet. Patrick Fallon / Bloomberg

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The Kindle started a fire in the world of books

Amazon's device is 10 years old this month. It's impact has been felt far and wide

National Editorial

October 31, 2017

When the Apple iPhone turned 10 years old this summer, a wave of favourable retrospectives hailed its enormous impact on mobile communications. Back in 2007, when Apple unveiled its first iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia products were our handsets of choice and few of us had any idea that our phone could be “smart” or that we would by now rarely use our handsets to place a call and have a chat.

Later this month, the Kindle E-reader celebrates its own 10-year anniversary. One suspects November 19 won't be marked with quite so much fanfare as the iPhone's June birthday, although the Amazon device was the subject of an appreciative column by Peter Nowak in our business pages earlier this week. In particular, Nowak praised the Kindle for its affordability.

Perhaps the Kindle’s greatest achievement was to bring the biggest bookshop in the world to the fingertips of its millions of users. Before its widespread uptake, one might have to wait weeks for a new hardback to be delivered to the UAE or elsewhere. The Kindle reduced that wait to seconds, even if Amazon has, in the process, radically remodelled the book-selling world and not always for the better. As Nowak mentioned in his column, the Kindle also inspired a generation of self-publishing authors, most notably E L James.

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This power to break down the traditionally closed doors of the book publishing world has been matched by the Kindle’s ability to protect the copyright of the author or content creator. While the newspaper industry, record companies, filmmakers and TV producers have watched the digital revolution chip away at their revenue streams and forced them all to into a protracted period of reinvention, the book business has sailed through the age of piracy with comparative ease. The Kindle established, fairly quickly, that customers were willing to pay to legally enjoy a new work of fiction or biography. Although the Kindle sparked a quieter revolution than the iPhone, arguably it has been just as significant in its impact.

Founders: Ines Mena, Claudia Ribas, Simona Agolini, Nourhan Hassan and Therese Hundt

Date started: January 2017, app launched November 2017

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: Private/Retail/Leisure

Number of Employees: 18 employees, including full-time and flexible workers

Funding stage and size: Seed round completed Q4 2019 - $1m raised

Funders: Oman Technology Fund, 500 Startups, Vision Ventures, Seedstars, Mindshift Capital, Delta Partners Ventures, with support from the OQAL Angel Investor Network and UAE Business Angels

Seven tips from Emirates NBD

1. Never respond to e-mails, calls or messages asking for account, card or internet banking details

2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet

3. Ensure online shopping websites are secure and verified before providing card details

4. Change passwords periodically as a precautionary measure

5. Never share authentication data such as passwords, card PINs and OTPs  (one-time passwords) with third parties

6. Track bank notifications regarding transaction discrepancies

7. Report lost or stolen debit and credit cards immediately

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”