Maktoob Revenue from 2001 to 2005 - Going from $0.9 to $3.5 million

With today's breaking news on Maktoob/Yahoo deal, some questions are inevitable to follow: If the $75-$85 million range mentioned by TechCrunch and paidContent as the deal value is correct, has Yahoo paid too much or too little for Maktoob? and the more important question for YHOO shareholders: How much revenue each user of Maktoob will bring to Yahoo? We have some clues for you.

According to data obtained by DubaiBeat.com, Maktoob's revenue has grown from $0.9 million in 2001 to $3.5 million in 2005. The community users, meanwhile, has grown from 1 million users in 2001 to 3.5 million users in 2004.

As for the valuation, we can see Abraaj Capital, a Dubai-based private equity firm, has paid $5.2 million for %40 of the company, so valuing it at $13 million in January 2005.

We leave to the reader as an exercise to calculate the revenue per user of Maktoob in each year and if Yahoo has paid too much or too little for Maktoob. The revenue data that we published is from early years and not recent, respecting our friends at the company, but the revenue potential can be seen even from those early years.