If you ask a Chinese person who has stayed in Saudi Arabia what they find most difficult to adapt to, the answer might not be the lack of leafy vegetables or the complexity of Arabic. Instead, it would likely be a somewhat helpless gripe: “It’s just too boring here!”

Mr. Lin, a Chinese man on a business trip in Riyadh for two months, is struggling with a deep sense of boredom. Despite repeatedly scrolling through humorous clips on social media and ranting about ridiculous news, he still can’t shake of the feeling of boredom. He yearns for the hot pot restaurants, bars, and karaokes which still open until very late night in China, but all that surrounds him now is the overly quiet night and the sudden recitations in the early morning.

It’s not just Chinese people accustomed to vibrant nightlife who feel this way. In fact, it wasn’t until 2018 that Saudi Arabia opened its first commercial cinema in Riyadh, screening Marvel’s “Black Panther,” the first commercial film in 35 years. That same year, women were allowed to attend sports events in stadiums, leading to the renovation of several stadiums to include separate seating for women and men.

The first night club called “Beast House” in Riyadh.

Hookah lounges are one of the few offline social entertainment options available locally. Due to the popularity of hookah lounges, some Middle Eastern cities experience traffic congestion at 11 or 12 at night, as many people are only willing to leave the lounges and drive home at that hour.

With few public social entertainment venues, private parties have become prevailing among the wealthy. These gatherings are often gender-segregated, with women able to take off their black cloaks and show off their elaborate makeup, colorful manicures, and luxurious outfits and designer bags.

However, with the advent of the internet, Middle Easterners seem to have found a new solution to the lack of offline social interaction. Online social entertainment in the Middle East is exceptionally popular. According to data, users in the region spend an average of over three and a half hours daily on social media, ranking among the highest globally and well above the global average of 2 hours and 22 minutes. In some places, the average working hours per person are only about 3 hours, with many Middle Eastern countries having a workday that ends at 3 PM.

Interestingly, many Middle Easterners may not realize that their intense social needs are fueling a number of Chinese social media companies. Over the years, this market has become highly lucrative, with many Chinese companies found business opportunities here.

A Gold Mine in the Middle East

At 10 PM, in an office located in the central district of Cairo, Egypt, more than 1600 kilometers from Riyadh, the lights are still on.

This office, located in Maadi Technology Park, one of Egypt’s largest tech parks, houses global companies like Amazon and Microsoft. However, it’s a company called Mico World that is bustling at this hour. The local customer service team, working afternoons and nights, patiently answers VIP customers’ queries. For this online live streaming social company, nighttime is their busiest period.

If you didn’t see Mico World’s Middle East head, Mr. Huang, you would find it hard to believe that this company was founded by Chinese people, given that the office is almost entirely filled with local employees.

Mr. Huang, who joined Mico World in 2017 after working in the Middle East for ten years, vividly remembers his first night in Egypt, sleeping on the floor because he hadn’t yet found accommodation. He might not have imagined that less than ten years later, Mico World’s annual revenue in the Middle East and North Africa would exceed 1 billion yuan, with over 500 employees in the Cairo office alone, occupying an entire floor of the office building.

Over the past decade, many Chinese companies have ventured into the Middle East’s social live streaming market. At its peak, there were even dozens of companies. The lonely Middle Eastern billionaires presented many Chinese companies with business opportunities. Tales of Middle Eastern billionaires lavishly spending in live streaming rooms excited Chinese entrepreneurs.

“Years ago, some people would even come to our Middle East office with stacks of cash,” Mico World once said. For the people of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, whose per capita GDP remains in the tens of thousands of dollars, tipping gifts priced at dozens of dollars in a live streaming room is effortless.

Looking back at these years in the Middle Eastern online social market, Chinese companies have employed every possible approach to adapt to the local culture.

The wealthy in the six GCC countries favor bold, flashy, and powerful elements. High-end gifts priced at thousands or even tens of thousands of gold coins (equivalent to dozens of dollars) include symbols of luxury and power like lions, diamonds, sports cars, and skyscrapers. Instead, in countries like Morocco, where both French and Arabic are spoken and European influence is strong, high-quality beauty tools and exquisite content are offered.

In the live streaming rooms of Middle Easterners, various special effects are used.

For instance, Middle Easterners value the concept of family and are keen on building family groups online. Platforms have accordingly set up a “family” function, allowing users to form families online and even organize offline gatherings to bring online relationships into the real world.

Additionally, Middle Easterners have a strong sense of honor, so platforms set up national honor competitions. In these competitions, one side with more tipping amount can raise their national flag in a live streaming room. This often leads to extravagant spending from billionaires supporting their country, with total tips amounting to millions.

Despite their strong emphasis on privacy (many Middle Eastern users, especially women, do not show their faces in online chat rooms), Middle Easterners are not cold and distant but rather love to talk. Mico World said that sometimes Middle Eastern users might chat with customer service for hours.

To respond to their needs quickly, customer service must reply within 10 seconds and resolve core issues within several words. Some companies even provide 24/7 support for their users.

In other words, Chinese social platforms have already taken all the available measures to satisfy their Middle Eastern customers’ needs in terms of products and technology.

A Unique Ecosystem

To continue providing emotional value to Middle Eastern billionaires in the long term, Chinese social platforms have to go beyond efforts in terms of product and technology. Stable content supply, well-structured works team, and navigating local regulations are crucial challenges.

An essential strategy is to distinguish between content supply and consumption markets. Countries like Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and Syria often serve as content suppliers, while the six GCC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are the consumers.

This model has created an interesting ecosystem. In Syria, a single mother can support her child by live-streaming singing, earning far more than local wages (a regular job might pay just tens of dollars a month), and even buy a house in another country.

Syriana and Gemma are examples. At 7 PM, 27-year-old single Syrian mother Syriana begins her livestream. Just two years ago, she and her children lived in poverty. Today, she earns hundreds of dollars weekly on MICO. Similarly, recent graduate Gemma, who struggled as a model, now earns significantly through livestreaming. These Chinese platforms have provided crucial economic opportunities for many in war-torn and economically disadvantaged countries like Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. They also often support users with subsidies for electricity and Wi-Fi to overcome local infrastructural challenges.

Middle Eastern female streamers

In Egypt, a man reliant on welfare bread might gain a fanbase and many gifts by live-streaming Quran recitations, a quite popular form of livestream in the Middle East.

During our visits to the Middle East, we met a Lebanese businessman who proudly showed us how he earned over $10,000 a month from live-streaming on TikTok, just chatting in Arabic, and unknowingly joined a certain multi-channel network (MCN).

The reason this model works successfully is quite simple: as content supply countries, their economic development is limited, but people have a strong work ethic. The religious environment is relatively open, and the culture background is rich enough, with people being outgoing and talented, willing to show their faces on live streams. On the other hand, the Gulf countries as the consumption end have a more serious religious environment, lack offline social venues, but are willing to spend money on online social interactions.

Over the years, Chinese companies have gradually deepened their layout in the content supply market in the Middle East.

According to media reports, as early as 2019, there were about four to five hundred streamer guilds active in the Middle East. At that time, ByteDance also started investing heavily in the Middle Eastern market (reportedly spending $80 million a month) to stimulate the live streaming ecosystem. To encourage the development of guilds, TikTok even offered significant profit-sharing incentives, such as giving guilds up to 39% of the revenue share in addition to the 50% for streamers, leaving TikTok with 11%.

Although TikTok’s revenue-sharing ratio has now largely decreased, and competition in the content supply market has become increasingly fierce (for example, major MCNs have started competing for top influencers), the Middle Eastern influencer market has rapidly expanded and matured due to these efforts.

A Local Talent Pool

Besides solving content supply issues, building a local works team is crucial for Chinese companies deeply embedded in the Middle Eastern market.

Many companies have chosen Egypt as their Middle Eastern headquarters for several reasons: a large young population, high education levels, a relatively diligent workforce, and low costs.

Population: Over one-third of Egyptians (34.45%) are between the ages of 15-34, and the total population is about 100 million, according to population census data.

Education: Despite its relatively underdeveloped economy, Egypt invests heavily in higher education, having allocated hundreds of billions of Egyptian pounds to this sector. In 2022, the university enrollment rate approached 40%.

Diligence: Due to poor economic conditions and few job opportunities, Egyptian youth value their jobs more and are more diligent compared to their peers in high-welfare countries like Saudi Arabia. For graduates majoring in Chinese from Cairo University, becoming a tour guide is already a good job.

Wages: Wages in Egypt are generally low. A Chinese milk tea shop owner in Cairo said that while a Chinese employee’s salary might be 70-80,000 Egyptian pounds (about 10,000 yuan), an Egyptian employee’s monthly salary is around 4-5,000 pounds (600-700 yuan). Currently, all seven employees in her shop are local people, whose total cost is equivalent to hiring one Chinese employee.

For Chinese companies expanding into the Middle East, the characteristics of young, highly educated, and low-cost Egyptian talent are highly beneficial, especially for social entertainment companies where human resources are key. Mico World has its Middle East headquarters in Egypt and has deeply felt these benefits.

According to Mico World, Egyptian youth are very innovative and eager to learn new things, allowing the Chinese team to quickly train local talent despite immature internet sector. They are also much more diligent than workers in many other Middle Eastern countries, readily addressing various work issues.

Mico World’s office in Egypt

Moreover, due to generally low wages, Mico World can offer more competitive salaries and benefits to attract high-quality talent.

Mr. Huang said that Mico World’s salaries are significantly higher than the local average, almost the highest in the industry. In addition, they offer comprehensive benefits such as paid leave, employee insurance, call allowances, and training programs. Near the work park, they even have a cafeteria and dormitories for employees.

For Egyptian youth, working at a Chinese internet company is a rare and prestigious opportunity. Even in this military-led country, many generals’ children take pride in working there, reminiscent of how young Chinese people saw working for foreign companies as prestigious in the early 21st century.

However, despite the many advantages Chinese social media companies have in Egypt in terms of talent, local team management must still consider many details.

For instance, Mico World holds bi-monthly meetings between Chinese executives and local employees, allowing any employee, regardless of rank, to voice any issues or complaints. At one meeting, a local employee mentioned a problem with the office fan, which was promptly addressed by the Chinese executives.

“Middle Eastern employees need emotional reassurance. They care about this a lot,” Mr. Huang said. To some extent, Middle Eastern employees need as much emotional value as Middle Eastern customers. Only by having similar cultural backgrounds and thought processes can local teams better serve local users and avoid being outcompeted due to insufficient localization in an increasingly competitive market.