Digital Media Landscape

GCC Market

by

@rania711

Executive Summary

• Internet users in GCC grew by more than 2000% from Dec 2000 to Jun 2012.

• Arabic is the fastest growing language on the Web with a penetration rate of 18% worldwide.

• Saudi has the highest number of YouTube views in the world per Internet user.

• Facebook users in the Region increased by 50% between Jun 2011 and Jun 2012 .

• By 2015, Ecommerce in the GCC will have grown to USD 15 billion up from USD 3.3 billion in 2010.*

• Saudi and UAE are the World’s leaders in smartphone penetration at 60% and 61% respectively.

• 27% of marketing budgets were allocated to digital in 2012, up from 22% in 2011, with potential to increase by at least 20%. (EConsultancy, Feb 2012)

* Source: UK’s Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and Visa quoted in The Edge online article.

The Internet

Growth compared to the rest of the world

Source: Internet World Stats. Copyright © 2012, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.

No. of Internet users in the GCC

Millions of users

Source: Internet World Stats. Copyright © 2012, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.

Country Population(2012)

Users in Dec 2000

Internet Usage

30 Jun 12

%population penetration

Facebook users 30 Sep 12

Kuwait 2,646,314 150,000 1,963,565 74.2% 824,880

Qatar 1,951,591 30,000 1,682,271 86.2% 727,980

Saudi Arabia 26,534,504 200,000 13,000,000 49.0% 5,536,280

UAE 8,264,070 735,000 5,859,118 70.9% 3,190,660

Growth between Dec 2000 and 30 Jun 2012

Source: Internet World Stats. Copyright © 2012, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.

Arabic in the top 10 Languages on the Internet

Source: data published by Nielsen Online, International Telecommunications Union, GfK, and other reliable sources.

Arabic is the fastest growing language on the Internet at the rate of 2,501.2% on 31 May 2011 compared to 2000, and a penetration rate of 18.8% making it the 7th most spoken language on the Internet.

Popular Arabic WebsitesName Description URL

 Google Saudi Arabia The third Arabic interface page of the search engine Google google.com.sa

MSN Arabia Incarnation of the worldwide Microsoft network portal site Localized for users in the Arab World, in Arabic & English

Arabia.msn.com

Maktoob The first web-based e-mail service To allow use of Arabic as well as English. It was acquired by Yahoo to become its Arabic interface website

maktoob.com

Al-Jazeera Internet edition of the Arab World’s most famous satellite TV station. Aljazeera.net

Al-Saha Al-Arabiya One of the oldest since 1998 and best-known Arabic discussion Forums, popular among all political Persuasions, especially in the UAE And Saudi Arabia

alsaha.com

google.ae Google’s first Arabic version google.aeKooora Soccer portal kooora.comHawaaworld Portal for women, conventional outlook hawaaworld.com6arab.com Real audio files of popular Arabic music 6arab.comJeeran Arab web hosting community jeeran.comShabakat Oz Kuwaiti portal: chat, clubs, pictures Software downloads ozq8.com

Source: Morris Kalliny (2012): What Advertisers Need to Know About Promotion in theArab World: Technology and Media Perspectives, Journal of Promotion Management, 18:4, 436-457 Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2012.715124

Social Media

follows the global trendsSocial Media in the GCC

New!

50% increase in Facebook users in MENA region

Jun 2011 Jun 2012

29,845,871

45,194,452

Source: Arab Social Media Report (June 2012)

Facebook users in GCC (Jun 2012)and ranking in the Middle East

Saudi: 5.5m UAE: 3.2m Kuwait: 992KQatar: 568K

Source: Arab Social Media Report (June 2012)

Source: Arab Social Media Report (June 2012)

Source: Arab Social Media Report (July 2012)

Saudi Arabia is the only GCC state that appears to prefer Facebook’s Arabic interface more than the English one.

عربي

Twitter active users in GCC (Jun 2012)and ranking in the Middle East

Source: Arab Social Media Report (July 2012)

Linkedin subscribers in GCC (Jun 2012)and ranking in the Middle East

UAE: 1.035m Saudi: 710KQatar: 189KKuwait: 175K

Source: Arab Social Media Report (2012)

State of the Arabic Blogosphere40,000 Arabic Blogs (Kalliny, 2012)

Arab Youth Survey May 2012

Source: Morris Kalliny (2012): What Advertisers Need to Know About Promotion in the Arab World: Technology and Media Perspectives, Journal of Promotion Management, 18:4, 436-457 Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2012.715124

GCC Blogs

Sample

Aboflan.com (a Kuwaiti blogger – good example)

Kuwaiti blogs are sophisticated and well connected with content distributed across platforms.

Social Media in the GCCwho’s using it, how and why?

Female to Male avg. is 50/50

Social Media usage by Gender

Female to Male avg. is 35/65

World Wide Trend

GCC

Source: Arab Social Media Report (June 2012)

<

Mainly due to societal & cultural limitations: Family/society barriers and stereotypes placed on women

Sources: http://www.statscrop.com http://www.arabsocialmediareport.com/UserManagement/PDF/ASMR%204%20updated%2029%2008%2012.pdf

Sample of Saudi daily social media consumption

Youtube Google Plus facebook Twitter Instagram

938,070

682,227

815,535

215,985

441

Nu

mb

er

of

vis

its

Saudi Arabia leads the Arab world in the number of daily visits at ~1 million.There are 90 million video views in Saudi per day (the highest number of YouTube views in the world per Internet user).

Local communities

Politicians

Governments

Businesses

Ecommerce

Leading in Ecommerce spending

(2011)

UAE Saudi

USD 2 Billion

USD 520 Million

Source: According to recent research done by Visa in 2011 sited by Sacha Orlof Group in their report “Saudi Arabia Retail Prospects and Outlook for 2012” available online

Online Retailers and Group buying sites

Source: TwoFour54 white paper “Group buying sites take the UAE by storm” available online.

serving as a catalyst to push buying power online

The Future

UAE and Saudi leading the world in smartphone penetration

Sources: http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet (2012)http://googlemobileads.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/new-research-shows-6-countries-are.html (May, 2012)

Smartphones are a valuable research tool

Saudi

Sources: Our Mobile Planet: Saudi Arabia and Our Mobile Planet: UAE (Google, May 2012)

UAE

How smartphones are being usedU

AE

KS

A

UA

E

KS

A

UA

E

KS

A

UA

E

KS

A

UA

E

KS

A

Access Internet Daily Use mobile while watching TV

Take action upon re-searching - i.e. buy or

contact a business

Make a purchase See an offline Ad then research on

mobile

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

71%66%

52%

34%

92%

77%

39%

25%

78%70%

Sourc

es:

Our

Mobile

Pla

net:

Saudi A

rabia

and

Our

Mobile

Pla

net:

UA

E (

Goog

le,

May 2

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Sources: Our Mobile Planet: Saudi Arabia and Our Mobile Planet: UAE (Google, May 2012)

Sources: Our Mobile Planet: Saudi Arabia and Our Mobile Planet: UAE (Google, May 2012)

Ends