Emaar Group is marking an industry-first by leveraging the significant potential of blockchain technology with plans to offer the Emaar community token for customers and partners by the end of this year.

This highlights Emaar’s intense focus on innovation and providing the most complete experience to drive customer service, loyalty and referral across its businesses, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction, growth and profitability.

Emaar grew revenues by 37 per cent in 2018 to US$7 billion and its brand value by 39 per cent to US$2.7 billion, placing it among the highest tier brands in the world.

The developer of the iconic Burj Khalifa, The Dubai Mall, Dubai Opera, The Dubai Fountain and premium lifestyle communities is also the world’s largest property company outside China, and the largest by listed market capitalisation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region under the MSCI EM Index. Emaar Properties PJSC, Emaar Malls PJSC and Emaar Development PJSC are listed on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

The Emaar community token will allow Emaar’s customers and stakeholders to reap the value of a full referral and loyalty system across the entire group, cementing the global brand and opening the Emaar experience potentially to billions of internet users.

This will be among the first referral and loyalty tokens in the world giving access to an existing operational ecosystem of close to US$10 billion, and an initial coin offering in Europe (ICO) will be considered within 12 months of the internal operational launch of the platform.

Swiss-based Lykke AG is leading the technology build of Emaar’s community token based on the Ethereum blockchain and the ERC20 token framework. The token will be transferable across the entire global Emaar ecosystem, including real estate, malls, hospitality, entertainment, facilities management and online shopping.

Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, said: “We continuously strive to expand our reach, strengthen our growth and extend the Emaar experience. We have embraced the digital world even as we continue to build the most advanced and innovative physical structures and we use both to delight and benefit our customers and stakeholders globally. The Emaar community token marks a significant leap in our digital transformation journey.”

Richard Olsen, Founder and CEO of Lykke, said: “We have developed cutting edge technology infrastructure with mass-market usability to support our core belief that all mobile and internet users should be able to participate in economic activity, regardless of size of contribution. We are thrilled to leverage our experience and expertise to support Emaar’s mission to bring value and utility to millions of users globally.”