In a prominent cultural event, Jeddah witnessed the official launch of “Kitab Sawti”, the world’s largest platform for Arabic and translated international audiobooks. The event follows two years of comprehensive work and collaboration with leading publishing houses, authors and studios across the Middle East to produce almost a thousand best-selling titles for Arabic literature giants such as Abbas Mahmoud Akkad, Ibrahim Nasrallah and Dr. Ahmed Khaled Tawfik as well as international A-listers including Dan Brown, Suzanne Collins and many others.

Through a user-friendly smart-phone app now available for IOS/Android devices, “Kitab Sawti” grants 400 million Arabic speakers all over the world access to bestselling and award-winning titles in an audio format. When tuned in, users are able to travel to a parallel universe; in a moment of entertainment, acquiring knowledge at only one finger-press away.

Originated in the heart of Sweden, Kitab Sawti is an international company with a global mindset and a team with more than 8 nationalities working from all over the world. In less than a year, the company succeeded in providing over 100 job opportunities in the Middle East including challenging markets such as Palestine and Syria, and ones with low employment rates such as Egypt.

The company initially started out as a project to support Syrian refugees in Sweden with the aim of integrating them in the Swedish society while retaining their Arabic identity and culture. Later the idea expanded with the support of investors who believe in the value of educational entertainment and the audio production of Arabic literature. The up and rising company was able to raise money from top Swedish investment firms and successful entrepreneurs such as Abdullah Elyas, founder of Careem and Dr. Annas Abedin founder of Qimam Fellowship Program.

The development of the app adopted a user-driven approach with the release of a beta version in July 2016 for testing and research purposes aimed to enhance a better understanding of users’ needs. Traction reaching up to 300,000 users tuning in regularly and consistently on daily and weekly basis constituted the transformation of constructive feedback into a reality.

With the test-phase coming to an end, the company has now released “Kitab Sawti Gold” that provides users with a selection of packages to choose from based on their usage and needs. While all packages grant users unlimited access to exclusive content along with special features such as offline-mode, the prices vary based on the period of access selected in weekly, monthly or annually.