Marketplace trends 2026: Amazon.ae, Kaspi and Uzum for electronics

Electronics sellers in the Gulf and Central Asia work across four marketplaces with very different disclosure. Kaspi.kz and Uzum publish figures; Amazon.ae and noon mostly do not. The numbers that exist for the year to August 2026 still describe the environment well enough to plan on.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan: growth continues, smartphones wobble

Kaspi.kz’s second-quarter 2026 results, published on 10 August, show marketplace GMV up 15% year on year in constant currency to KZT 2.3 trillion ($4.8 billion) and e-commerce GMV up 28% to KZT 1.3 trillion ($2.6 billion), with e-commerce purchases up 33%. The third-party e-commerce take rate rose 160 basis points to 16.1%, driven by advertising and delivery services: sellers are paying more for visibility and fulfilment than a year ago. Kaspi reiterated its full-year guidance of around 20% marketplace GMV growth. The consumer electronics signal came earlier: at its fourth-quarter 2025 results on 2 March, Kaspi said smartphone GMV in Kazakhstan fell 24% in the quarter while e-commerce GMV excluding smartphones grew 27% for the year, and that January data pointed to recovery. Kaspi also completed the acquisition of a Turkish bank in July to support instalment lending on Hepsiburada.

Uzbekistan’s Uzum reported 2025 e-commerce GMV above $500 million, about 1.5 times the prior year, with more than 17,000 local sellers and an assortment above 100 million SKUs after launching cross-border listings. Net profit was $176 million, and fintech volumes including instalments and lending reached $1.2 billion, nearly triple 2024. No 2026 interim figures had been published by August.

Amazon.ae ran Prime Day from 24 to 30 June 2026, seven days across more than 30 categories, with electronics discounts of up to 40% including PlayStation, Nintendo, Meta Quest, Samsung, Sony and Canon products, and Prime membership at AED 16 a month or AED 140 a year. The event ran in Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the same dates. Instalments via Tabby and Tamara and same-day or two-hour delivery were built into the offer, which sets the baseline customers now expect from any electronics listing in the UAE. noon does not publish comparable figures, so sellers rely on category-level signals and their own account data.

The common thread is credit: Kaspi and Uzum are fintech companies with marketplaces attached, and the Gulf platforms have embedded instalment providers. High-ticket electronics sell through instalments, and take rates are rising as advertising becomes the main way to be seen.

What it means for buyers

Plan assortment around instalment-friendly price points and the platforms’ promotional calendars: Prime Day in June and the November sales events in the Gulf, the year-end season in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Budget for a higher take rate on Kaspi in 2026 and treat advertising as a cost of goods rather than an option. Smartphone demand in Kazakhstan was weak in late 2025, so weight orders towards consoles, audio and cameras where the platforms report growth. Uzum’s cross-border catalogue means imported electronics face more listings than a year ago; a local-stock seller wins on delivery time, not on price alone. Kazakhstan-bound goods need registry data from January 2026, so ask suppliers for specification and conformity packs with every order and keep MOQs by SKU modest until sell-through on the platform is proven.