A partnership between the UAE government, the Galadari Brothers and the Dawn Group of Companies began publishing the daily on 16 April 1978, making it the first English daily in the UAE. The founding team consisted of Mahmoud Haroon, Muzammil Ahmed, M.J. Zahedi, Malcolm Payne and Iqbal Noorie. They were soon joined by Patrick Heyland who was in charge of advertising and promotion. The Editorial staff of the paper includes multiple nationalities, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, but also local Emiratis, other Arabs, Lebanese, Mexicans, British, Americans and Filipinos. The broadsheet comprises the general news section, City Times, a business section, a sports section, the WKND magazine, and a classifieds section. Khaleej Times is not audited and it is believed to print around 49,000 copies. Additionally, it covers Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia through a dedicated distribution network. The newspaper also consists of Special Reports and Supplements which allow for community advertisements and other services. Its main competitors are The National,Gulf News and, formerly, 7days, which closed inDecember 2016. The Ipsos data in 2009 showed that the paper had a readership of 78.8%. The paper has a strong digital footprint, and khaleejtimes.com ranked as No. 15th most popular website in the UAE on June 20, 2018, ahead of its competitors. The online version was the 21st mostly visited website for 2010 in the MENA region. As part of restructuring, Khaleej Times laid off up to 30 staff in late 2016. It has been firing staff ever since to offset losses. The newspaper's pages have been reduced to less than half of what it was. In July 2018, Khaleej Times introduced a free news subscription service on WhatsApp, sending regular news updates every day to its subscribers.
Additional publications
Young Times, which Khaleej Times stopped publishing in 2008, was aimed at children and was a popular magazine among the target age-group. The publishing house relaunched Young Times on January 10, 2018, after a break of over 9 years. The magazine targets 9–14 year-old children. KT Buzzon is a separate tabloid of 28 to 32 pages published daily along with the Khaleej Times main paper. It carries local advertisements about cars, real estate, recruitment, educational services and matrimonial announcements. WKND Magazine, is published on Fridays along with the broadsheet, discusses a range of topics that are of interest to men, women and children. Stories are balanced between topics and themes of local interest and international relevance. Khaleej Times Online is the global face of the newspaper on the internet. The online version offers additional stories and exclusives not found in the print version. Khaleej Times Spotlight also publishes special supplements, including on the national days of countries including UAE, Pakistan and India.
