Is Baidu exiting Egypt? Chinese search giant Baidu is backing away from turning Egypt into its regional headquarters as it backtracks on its Middle East expansion, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall). The company has been gradually laying off its more than 30 employees and has closed its Cairo office in the past few months after the business didn’t meet its targets, said several former employees and tech execs. The move comes after six years of expanding operations in Cairo with a focus on developing Arabic-language applications, advertising platforms for the MENA region and even testing an Arabic search engine. The products simply failed to catch on, company insiders said. Company reps in Beijing (the WSJ could not find any in Cairo) told the newspaper that Baidu was focusing on mobile apps and that it had “tens of mns of monthly active users in MENA.” The pullback appears to be part of a trend among Chinese big tech companies who have been struggling to compete abroad with more established US firms such as Alphabet and Facebook.

On the flipside, Facebook grew its MENA user base by 20% between July 2016 and July 2017, MENA Managing Director Jonathan Labin told The National. Facebook inaugurated new regional headquarters in Dubai Knowledge Village with a capacity of around 150 staff, up from 40 previously. The social network has 164 mn monthly active users in the region as of July, up from 136 mn a year earlier. “We are very excited about the region; we are investing in the region and we see huge growth potential,” Labin says pointing to high demand for video and mobile services.