Today, I am happy to announce that we have signed a definitive agreement with Yahoo! whereby Yahoo! will be acquiring Maktoob Research as part of a full acquisition of Maktoob.com’s Internet portal-related businesses.

The combination of Maktoob Research and Yahoo! is a revolutionary step for the Marketing Research industry and will take online research in the Middle East and North Africa region to a whole new level.

For our research partners all over the world, this partnership will mean unprecedented reach to Arab consumers. Thanks to Yahoo!’s 20 million users in our region, our consumer panel, which is already the largest in the Arab world, will now get much bigger, enabling us to garner insights on key consumer segments more quickly and effectively.

Today marks the beginning of a new and exciting phase for our industry.

One thing you can always count on is our continued commitment to helping you reach your business objectives. Your success will continue to be our success.

I look forward to chatting with you over the coming weeks to go over more details of some of the great opportunities that this partnership will present.

For more information on the acquisition and to read our press release, please check http://business.maktoob.com/yahoomaktoob.