Pursuits
Billionaires Push $20 Smartphones on Pakistan's Black Friday
- Rocket Internet startup pushes US-style holiday splurge
- Three-year-old Daraz gets 50 million euros in new funding
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The billionaire Samwer brothers want to help introduce Pakistan’s shoppers to a local version of Black Friday, the November sales binge that kicks off the year-end holiday retail season in the U.S.
It doesn’t matter that Black Friday is an American invention, said Bjarke Mikkelsen, co-chief executive officer of Daraz, the online retailer backed by the brothers’ incubator Rocket Internet SE. Daraz -- operating in Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh -- will team with brands and advertisers to offer “hundreds of deals” on Nov. 27, he said. It will partner with Easypay, the mobile payment service offered in Pakistan by Norwegian wireless carrier Telenor ASA.