Source: Creative Commons Attribution by p e e p e r
Global online ad spending will overtake newspaper expenditures in 2013 (USD $101.5 billion vs. $93.2 billion), and will exceed the combined total of newspapers and magazines in 2015 predicts ZenithOptimedia. When is comes to Middle East UAE has been the leader in Digital spending.
Online advertising monitoring and intelligence service OOXmonitor released a report for Digital Spend in UAE and Saudi Arabia for 2012.
The UAE market grew by 12.6 percent in 2012 vs. 2011, while Saudi Arabia grew by 5.3 percent. Online ad activities in total number of campaigns monitored have recorded a 22.8 percent increase in the UAE and 17.5 percent increase in Saudi Arabia vs. 2011.
It is interesting to note that despite having a much larger population, Saudi Arabia still lacks behind UAE market (26.5 million vs. 5.3 million population) in online ad spend by $31.7 million, and number of Internet users (3.5 million vs. 9.8 million )
This puts the UAE’s online ad spend per capita in 2012 at $20.4 vs. $2.9 for Saudi Arabia. The numbers look better when ad spend is measured against the Internet users count as opposed to total population: the online ad spend per internet user sits at $31.4 in the UAE vs. $7.8 in KSA.
Online ad spend in the GCC is estimated to have reached the $230 million mark in 2012.
Restaurants and Bars have made it to the top 10 categories this year and Watches and Jewellery made an exit.
