 | |
| Type of business | e-commerce |
|---|---|
Type of site | e-commerce |
| Available in | Arabic |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Beirut, Lebanon |
| Area served | Middle East |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Books, Music, DVDs, Gifts. |
| URL | Neelwafurat.com |
| Launched | 1998 |
Neelwafurat.com (Arabic: نيل و فرات.كوم) is an Internet e-commerce website, similar to amazon.com, which serves primarily the Middle East and Arab World. The company sells books, magazines, films and software.
The company was founded and launched in 1998,[1][2] and was part of a large boom in Arab World use of e-commerce.[3] The name Neelwafurat is a term referring to the Nile and Euphrates rivers (neel means "Nile", "wa" is a phonetic spelling of the specific letter waw, and furat means "Euphrates"). This is a reference to the Amazon.com connection with the Amazon River.[citation needed]
Neelwafurat's headquarters is located in Beirut, Lebanon. There is an additional branch in Egypt.[4]
In 2004, the two best-selling novels on Neelwafurat were Cities of Salt by Abdul-Rahman Munif and The Insane Asylum by Ghazi al-Gosaibi, however both of these books were banned in Saudi Arabia.[5] The web retailer is seen as a primary part of Lebanon's New Economy, and is a major outlet for independent publishers.[6]
Neelwafurat's primary competitors are adabwafan.com and e-kotob.com.[7]