Chinese-founded social network Yalla gets going in Middle East

Chinese-founded social network Yalla gets going in Middle East

TikTok is the most famous example of a Chinese social media app that became a smash hit overseas, but in the Middle East there is a second Chinese-founded app that is taking the region by storm.

Yalla, or "Let's go“ in Arabic, saw the monthly users of its chat app and its games app increase by nearly fivefold to more than 12m in the year to last June, and its share price has more than tripled since an IPO in New York last October.

The company has localised so well, with headquarters in Dubai, that many users are unaware that its engineering team and founders are all in Hangzhou, near Shanghai “” a rare example of a successful Chinese-foreign hybrid tech company.

Yang Tao, the chief executive of the company, spent the first six years of his career in Abu Dhabi working for telecoms equipment firm ZTE, which is how he met his co-founders, as well as group president Saifi Ismail, the most senior Arab manager who is also on the board.

Yang said he came up with the idea while travelling around the region, from Egypt to Afghanistan, and noticing how much time people spent talking on the phone.

He decided to build a