Daily deal for Etisalat and Cobone

The number of "daily deal" emails clogging your inbox is set to increase again as Etisalat, the national telecommunications company, has teamed up with Cobone.com to launch its own bargain-hunter service. The web-based service, called More Deals, offers rewards to Etisalat customers who become members and use Cobone's group buying technology."More Deals" so far have included discounted coffee and cake at an Abu Dhabi hotel and a cheap oil filter change. Etisalat plans to offer as many as 3,000 products from more than 400 brands. Points towards such offers can be racked up with every dirham spent on Etisalat services such as phone, internet and mobile plans."Etisalat is the leading telco here, and Cobone.com is the leading group buying site by market share," said Paul Kenny, the chief executive of Cobone.com. "So both have the aspiration to create something unique and we're delivering upon that now."Mr Kenny said his company's website, which has 800,000 subscribers registered for daily emails, has enjoyed 25 to 35 per cent growth every month since the website was launched one year ago. The growth persists, he said, despite new players such as YallaBanana.com and Dealgobbler.com entering the already crowded market this year. "I don't think there's saturation, I think there will be room for one or two or three players in the region," Mr Kenny said. Cobone also operates in other markets in the Middle East such as Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but the UAE still records 50 per cent of its total sales. And it is not just Cobone that says it has experienced rapid growth in the UAE and Middle East. GoNabit, which was bought out this year by the US group buying website LivingSocial, has also recorded strong growth, said Dan Stuart, its chief executive and founder. "Our user base is growing far larger than it ever was, from a members' perspective. In terms of the number of businesses that are contacting us and that we're contacting and having meaningful discussions with, I think it is only increasing," Mr Stuart said. "From a merchant perspective, I would say it's becoming less experimental and more of accepted part of people's marketing mix."But with more players entering and making the group buying market more competitive, the growth could slow down, said Matthew Reed, the senior analyst for the Middle East and Africa at Informa Telecoms & Media. "They [UAE group buying websites] have experienced some quite rapid growth but because it has relatively low barriers to this sector, it's not that well established yet," he said. "It's one that could become very competitive and that seems to be the case. "It could quite quickly become that growth is slow."Mr Reed also said retailers engaging in these deals could also lose their appetite for using daily deal sites."In the US there has been some negative reaction from retail partners who have questioned whether they're really getting a good deal out of these propositions," he said. "With players becoming more aggressive, they might risk alienating their retail partners."