Argaam Weekend | Tactical elasticity

Tactical elasticity

3^rdJanuary 2026

● The Impact of Saudi’s New Sugar Tax: Opportunities and Challenges for Industry Leaders PepsiCo and Almarai
● A Comparative Analysis of Three Car Rental and Ride-Sharing Business Models in Saudi Arabia
● Which sectors are the most competitive in the Saudi market according to the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)?
● Buy Now, Pay Later in Saudi Arabia: A ‘Regulated Coexistence’ with Credit Cards

Topics of the Week

The Impact of Saudi’s New Sugar Tax: Opportunities and Challenges for Industry Leaders PepsiCo and Almarai

The impact of the new tiered sugar tax in Saudi Arabia—specifically regarding the relationship between sugar sweetened beverages and consumption patterns, corporate pricing strategies, and government revenues—depends on the price elasticity of demand. This elasticity measures the extent to which the quantity of sweetened beverages purchased by consumers changes when prices rise or fall.

A Comparative Analysis of Three Car Rental and Ride-Sharing Business Models in Saudi Arabia

The race for leadership in Saudi Arabia’s passenger transport sector is not decided by who owns the largest number of vehicles, but by capital efficiency and by who best manages unit economics—through analyzing costs and revenues—in a way that can generate sustainable returns.

Which sectors are the most competitive in the Saudi market according to the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)?

This report does not aim merely to rank Saudi sectors by competitiveness; rather, it seeks to provide a structural reading that helps decision makers understand the boundaries of competition within each sector, and whether the nature of the market itself allows new players to enter or instead reproduces market power in the hands of a limited number of companies.

Buy Now, Pay Later in Saudi Arabia: A ‘Regulated Coexistence’ with Credit Cards

The prevailing narrative in economic journalism—which in recent weeks has reported the rising share of “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) services in transactions at traditional retail stores in Saudi Arabia, and has portrayed this trend inaccurately and with excessive simplification as BNPL “invading” the traditional domain of credit cards—is understandable if one looks only at the numbers.