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A $10 billion-a-year Gulf retail and mall group took a tourism collapse head-on and still grew operating income 38% in the half — because domestic demand and the digital arm carried the quarter the airports could not.
H1 2026: revenue +1%, EBITDA +11%, operating income +38% · development pipeline valued at nearly $30 billion · more than AED 1 billion a year into technology and AI, roughly $270 million US · quick commerce grew almost 38% last year · the group's first digitally native AI-enabled business grew almost 50% last year · 40,000 employees · exclusive rights to more than 390 Carrefour stores across 12 markets
"The biggest competitor for Majid Al Futtaim is our past success. We've had a fantastic three-year run, record profitability, the strongest balance sheet we've had in a decade. The biggest risk to us is complacency."
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Majid Al Futtaim was founded in 1992 and has become one of the Middle East's largest privately held groups. Its businesses span shopping malls, residential communities and hotels, plus supermarkets, cinemas and digital retail across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. In 2025 it reported record revenue of AED 35.9 billion — nearly $10 billion US by CNBC's own conversion — up 6% on the previous year. Then 2026 tested it. War in the region disrupted travel and tourism, and the numbers around the group are stark: passenger traffic on Middle Eastern airlines fell nearly 60% year on year in March, the first full month of the war, and Dubai International was down 31% across the first half. Group CEO Ahmed Galal Ismail describes the second quarter as testing for everyone, with consumer confidence dampened, tourism revenues significantly diminished, and a short but very noticeable demand shock. What happened next is the reason this entry exists. Across the first half, group revenue still grew 1% year on year. EBITDA grew 11%. Operating income grew 38%. Footfall, excluding the short interruption when hostilities began, was roughly flat — because while tourism had not returned to pre-conflict levels, domestic demand held up. The CEO's framing is that the diversified portfolio absorbed the hit and the group rebounded quickly. Meanwhile it kept spending. A development pipeline valued at nearly $30 billion continues, including a $1.4 billion transformation of Mall of the Emirates that the CEO describes as five billion over five years and only one-fifth complete, adding 10% more leasable space, 100 more shops and the mall's first indoor-outdoor dining precinct. More than AED 1 billion a year — roughly $270 million US — goes into technology and AI. And the fastest-growing parts of a business built in concrete are not concrete: quick commerce grew almost 38% last year, and the group's first digitally native AI-enabled business grew almost 50%.
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“In 2025, it reported record revenue of 35.9 billion dirhams or nearly 10 billion US up 6% from the previous year.”
1:12 · hear it in the video“The group says it invests more than a billion dirhams a year in technology and AI. That's roughly $270 million US.”
6:35 · hear it in the videoData credibility: CNBC International report with an on-camera interview with Group CEO Ahmed Galal Ismail. The 2025 record revenue of AED 35.9 billion (which CNBC itself converts to nearly $10 billion US) is a reported company result relayed by the broadcaster, and the aviation figures — Middle Eastern airline passenger traffic down nearly 60% year on year in March, Dubai International down 31% across H1 2026 — are third-party industry data cited by CNBC. The first-half growth rates (+1% revenue, +11% EBITDA, +38% operating income), the quick commerce and AI-native business growth rates, the AED 1 billion-plus annual technology spend and the 40,000 headcount are all the CEO's own statements on camera, unaudited within the clip. No segment revenue split, margin percentage or cost breakdown is disclosed. The auto-generated transcript garbles the company name throughout (appearing as "Magad Alpha team", "Magidel Fatame", "Magic Futame" and other variants) and the CEO's name; the spellings used here follow the video's own title. One digital business is rendered only as "ATTE" and is described here by the CEO's own words — the group's first digitally native AI-enabled business — rather than by name.
A mall's first customers are not shoppers, they are anchor tenants, and the sequence is the opposite of what it looks like from the car park.
In this model the first dollar is a lease signed before a single slab is poured, and it has to be, because a development pipeline valued at nearly $30 billion cannot be funded out of footfall that does not yet exist.
Three loops are visible in the numbers.
For a developer, the no-feedback stretch is measured in years rather than months: a destination is financed, permitted and built long before a single customer walks through it, and there is no way to A/B test a mall.
Four businesses on one balance sheet. Property and destinations — shopping malls, residential communities and hotels. Retail — the exclusive right to operate more than 390 Carrefour stores across 12 markets in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Leisure — cinemas and entertainment. And an increasingly separate digital business covering quick commerce and what the CEO calls the group's first digitally native AI-enabled business. Our read: the structure is the product. Each arm is a different way of monetising the same customer relationship in the same geography, which is why a shock that hits one can be absorbed by another. The supermarket network is not only revenue, it is the reason a family visits the destination weekly; the cinema is the reason they stay for an evening; the quick commerce app is the same basket delivered when they do not want to leave the house. The physical side is treated as something that has to be continuously rebuilt rather than maintained. The Mall of the Emirates programme adds 10% more leasable space and 100 more shops, but the CEO puts the emphasis elsewhere — on a new culture experience, a new dining experience and the mall's first indoor-outdoor dining precinct. His argument is that the infrastructure is the easy part and the experience is what makes a destination timeless. In an era when the obvious prediction was that malls would hollow out, this group's answer was to spend more on the reasons to be physically present.
Rent from tenants, margin on groceries through the Carrefour operation, ticket and concession revenue from cinemas, room revenue from hotels, sale and lease income from residential development, and a growing digital line from quick commerce and the AI-enabled business. No segment revenue split is given in the interview. What is given is the group total and the direction. Record 2025 revenue of AED 35.9 billion, nearly $10 billion US, up 6%. In the shocked first half of 2026, revenue up 1%, EBITDA up 11%, operating income up 38%. Our read: that pattern is the single most instructive thing in this entry. Revenue barely moved and operating income rose by more than a third, which is what happens when a business meets a demand shock with cost discipline and mix rather than with discounting. The profit growth came from how the business was run, not from how much it sold. The growth rates by line are equally telling. The concrete grows in single digits. Quick commerce grew almost 38% last year and double digits in the shocked half despite supply chain disruption. The digitally native AI-enabled business grew almost 50% last year and, per the CEO, very high double digits this year. The smallest and newest lines are the fastest, which is exactly why the group keeps putting more than AED 1 billion a year into technology while defending a $30 billion pipeline of buildings.
No margin percentage, cost breakdown or technology stack is disclosed. What is disclosed is the scale of the technology commitment — more than AED 1 billion a year, roughly $270 million US — and, more usefully, the philosophy governing it. The CEO's position on AI spending is unusually disciplined for a public interview and deserves quoting in substance: the group has seen good return on AI investments and is very disciplined about them because it is expensive technology, you cannot use AI everywhere, and you cannot use AI in isolation from human ingenuity. Asked whether 40,000 employees would be joined by 10,000, 20,000 or 40,000 AI agents within two or three years, he declines to predict, and reframes the question around empowering the existing workforce to use the agents available to them. On the cost side of retail specifically, the interview gives a rare piece of supply chain detail. When shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted, the group's exposure was smaller than expected because up to 80% of dairy never gets on a ship or a plane and around 50% of fresh poultry comes mostly from local sources. The CEO also cites the rule of thumb that every 10% long-term increase in oil prices eventually produces around 0.4% food inflation, and says the group did not pass the increase through in full, using technology and supply chain investment to hold entry-level prices and offering local alternatives to imported branded products.
Nobody reading this is going to build a $30 billion development pipeline. Four things here scale down to a one-person business and are worth taking seriously. First, segment your revenue by what shocks it, not by what it is. This group split domestic demand from tourism demand and immediately saw that the resilient half was intact while the headline looked bad. A solo founder's equivalent is splitting revenue by acquisition channel, by customer type, or by whether the customer's own budget is discretionary — and knowing which segment survives a bad quarter before the bad quarter arrives. Second, note where the growth actually is. The oldest, largest, most capital-intensive part of this business grows in single digits; the newest, smallest, software-shaped parts grow at 38% and 50%. If a $10 billion group finds its fastest growth in a digital layer built on top of existing customer relationships, that layer is worth more of your attention than the core. Third, copy the AI discipline verbatim. Expensive technology, applied selectively, never in isolation from human judgement, and measured for return. That is the correct posture at any size, and it is notably absent from most small-company AI planning. Fourth, copy the shock response: meet a demand drop with cost discipline and mix rather than discounting. Revenue up 1% with operating income up 38% is the arithmetic proof. Change the capital assumption entirely. The reason this group could stay the course through a war is a balance sheet the CEO calls the strongest in a decade, built over three record years. Patience of that kind is purchased in advance — without it, the same posture is simply denial.
Regional instability is the live risk and the interview does not minimise it. A war produced a near-60% year-on-year fall in Middle Eastern airline passenger traffic in a single month and a 31% fall at Dubai International across the half, and tourism had still not returned to pre-conflict levels at the time of recording. A business whose destinations were built partly for visitors carries that exposure structurally. Consumer dependency is second. The group's scale offers protection, but it remains a business that needs people to keep shopping, travelling and spending. The CEO acknowledges customers delaying major and elective purchases and economising on the basket during the shock. Capital intensity is third. A development pipeline of nearly $30 billion is a commitment made years before the demand that has to justify it, and the stated posture of developing through cycles rather than with them means that commitment is held while conditions deteriorate. The risk the CEO names himself is the most interesting one: the group's biggest competitor is its own past success, and the danger of a fantastic three-year run is complacency, which pulls attention inward toward competitors and away from customers. On evidence: the 2025 revenue figure and the aviation traffic data are reported by CNBC rather than asserted by the company, which is why this entry is graded as hard data. But the first-half growth rates, the digital business growth rates and the AI investment figure are all the CEO's own on-camera statements, unaudited in this clip. The auto-transcript also mangles the company name throughout — it appears as "Magad Alpha team", "Magidel Fatame" and several other variants — and one digital business is rendered only as "ATTE", so that unit is described here by what the CEO says it is rather than by name.
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