Category: Reports

UAE Has Highest Mobile Penetration In The Arab World

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According to a new study by Kuwaiti-based Inter-Arab Investment Guarantee Corporation (IAIGC), a key Arab League body, the UAE had the highest mobile phone penetration in the Arab world at the end of 2007, with its subscribers far exceeding its population.

Figures showed the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country stood at 7.6 million at the end of last year a ratio as high as 173 to each 100 people.

The figure is far higher than any other Arab state and more than triple the world average of 49.3 for every 100 people.

Qatar came second, with a ratio of 150.4 mobile phone per 100 people. It was followed by Bahrain with 148.2, Saudi Arabia with 114.7, Kuwait with 97.2 and Oman with 96.3.

Outside the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jordan topped the list, with a ratio of 80.5 per each 100 persons, followed by Tunisia, Libya and Morocco.

Djibouti and Somalia were at the bottom of the list, having one of the world’s lowest mobile phone penetration at 5.4 and 6.8 respectively.

The figures showed the UAE’s penetration was more than triple the average Arab ratio of 50.8 and the world average of 49.3 at the end of 2007. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of mobile phone subscribers in the UAE grew by an annual average 25.6 per cent, almost four times its population growth. But the level was far lower than growth in some other Arab countries as it was as high as 270 per cent in war-battered Iraq and 129.9 per cent in Libya. Experts believe the UAE will maintain its high mobile phone penetration this year given the rapid growth in subscribers and in its economy.

Madar Research Reports Growth In Online Advertising Spend

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Madar ResearchMadar Research reports that online advertising spend in the GCC-Levant region registered a growth twice the global rate in 2007. Travel/Hospitality and Real Estate sectors emerged as top online advertising spenders in the region during the past year with a combined outlay comprising nearly half (45%) of the total online spend.

As in previous years, the ongoing rapid growth in online advertising spend in the GCC-Levant region still failed to deliver a market share on par, or at least comparable, with the current world statistics. However, this scenario is expected to improve over the long term as the global market reaches maturity, causing a stable, less rapid growth compared to that of the regional market.

Overall global advertising spend grew by 5.2% last year (2007) fueled by developing markets, whose advertising spend growth managed to offset the comparatively slower growth experienced in developed markets like the United States. On the other hand, total ad spending in the GCC-Levant region rose by approximately 19.4% in 2007, with UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar registering the most growth.

# Source: MediaME

Small Majority Of Arab Satellite TV Channels Have Online Presence

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During April 2008, the Arab Advisors Group examined 377 FTA satellite TV channels broadcasting on Arabsat, Nilesat, and Noorsat satellite systems (targeting the Arab World) to research their online presence. Of the analysed stations, 64.5% (243 channels) have an online presence namely a website or a portal tied to the channel.

Spurred by the increasing uptake of the Internet service in the Arab World, many channels in the Arab TV industry have established an online presence. The Arab Advisors Group analysis reveals that a majority of channels with an online presence have an enhanced presence. An enhanced online presence includes channels that have corresponding portals. The portals portray the channels’ services and the Integration between the satellite channel and its online presence is relatively strong. Moreover, many satellite channels with basic online presence (where the integration between the satellite channel and its content and service availability is relatively weak) demonstrate their intention of enhancing their online services.

A new report, ‘Online Presence of FTA Satellite Channels in the Arab World‘ was released to the Arab Advisors Group’s Media Strategic Research Service subscribers recently. The 40-page report, which has 24 detailed exhibits, provides a detailed analysis of the online presence of FTA satellite channels in the Arab World. The report includes analysis and categorisation of the online presence of 377 FTA satellite TV channels broadcasting on Arabsat, Nilesat and Noorsat satellite systems.

The results of the study show the following:

  • A majority of the 243 channels that have online presence lean more towards an enhanced online presence.
  • Almost 40% of the satellite channels have online presence but do not aim at generating online revenues.
  • A total of 24.6% of satellite channels use their supporting websites or portals as an alternative source of revenue.
  • A majority of the channels that have online revenue generating features have an enhanced online presence.

I personally think that there is still a lot of space for the online presence of Arab satellite TV channels to grow and be enhanced, so as to provide more services, content, types of entertainment, added-value and interactivity for the user; complementing the TV offer; and becoming yet another channel of distribution and revenue for the company.

MBC Group and Al-Jazeera are great examples through their online presence and the projects that they’ve been launching on the sides, taking it all a step further, widening and engaging their audiences.

# Arab Advisors Group

IDSC Releases New Report About Egyptian Blogs

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The Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), the research arm of the Egyptian government, just released a report titled ‘Egyptian Blogs: New social space‘, detailing the status of Egyptian and Arabic blogs in general, their importance and content.

Among the report’s findings are the following:

  • The Arabic language doesn’t come up in the top 10 blogging languages in the world.
  • The total number of Arabic blogs is estimated at 490.000 blogs, representing only 0.7% of the total number of blogs in the world.
  • Egyptian blogs form 30.7% of all Arabic blogs with an estimated number of 160,000 blogs.
  • 76.8 % of the Egyptian blogs use the Arabic language, 9.6% are written in English, and 20.8% are mixed.
  • 53.1% of the Egyptian bloggers are between 20 – 30 years old; 18.8% between 30-40; 17% under 20 and 11.1% over 40.
  • 73% of the Egyptian bloggers are males, and 27% are females.
  • Jeeran has the largest collection of Egyptian blogs with around 116.192 blogs forming 72.6% of the total number of Egyptian blogs. Followed by BlogSpot with 16.29%, and then Maktoob with 6.5%.

The full report can be viewed in Arabic here: Egyptian Blogs: New social space (PDF)

Middle East & Africa Mobile Revenues To Hit $107 Billion By 2013

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MobilesOperator-billed service revenues across the Africa & Middle East region are expected to rise to more than $107 billion in 2013, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

The report found that growth would be driven by mobile data services, fueled by the greater availability and wider variety of rich-media content coupled with lower browsing costs.

However, it noted that regional operator-billed voice revenues were likely to peak in 2011 and would subsequently fall away due to increasingly competitive pricing in that sector.

Other findings from the Juniper Research report include:

  • The Middle East/Africa mobile user base is to grow at an average annual rate of 10.5% between 2008 and 2013.
  • Mobile data services are expected to contribute 24% of operator-billed service revenues in 2013, against just 9% in 2008.
  • Saudi Arabia will provide the largest share of cumulative regional revenues over the forecast period, followed by Nigeria.

The detailed report provides in-depth coverage and forecasts for six key Africa & Middle East markets (Egypt, Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates) as well as for the region as a whole. It also includes regional overviews for key revenue drivers including mobile advertising, mobile entertainment services, mobile financial services and mobile ticketing.

Whitepapers and further details of the study ‘Mobile Africa & Middle East: Opportunities, Markets & Forecasts 2008-2013’ can be freely downloaded from Juniper Research.

If anything, I think these numbers show the potential the mobile data services market in the Middle East and Africa holds, and that it could be a very lucrative market for startups in the region, who can use the growth in this sector to fuel their own business growth.

# Juniper Research Press Release

Net Monitor Ipoque Finds Big Gaps Between West And Middle East Internet Activity

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ipoqueIpoque, a part-time researcher of Internet activity and trends headquartered in Leipzig, Germany, recently released the findings of a study conducted between August and September 2007, in which it observed Internet traffic in five regions of the world, to establish an overview of the Internet’s current state.

Three petabytes of anonymous data representing over one million users in Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, the Middle East and Southern Europe were analyzed as part of the study.

According to the study, P2P is still producing more traffic in the Internet then all other applications combined. Its average proportion during the measurement period regionally varies between 49% in the Middle East and 83% in Eastern Europe.

By studying the complete protocol distribution for Germany and the Middle East; the results found that in both regions, Web browsing accounts for the the second-most traffic with a share of 26% in the Middle East and 10% in Germany; not including any audio or video streaming content.

Media streaming content ranks third in Germany with a proportion of about 8%; In the Middle East it is negligible with less than 0.1%. Possible reasons include lower-speed Internet access and less media-rich content on local-language Web sites.

The third position in the Middle East and the fourth in Germany is taken by direct download links file sharing websites such as RapidShare.com and MegaUpload.com; 62 of these one-click file hosting services were studied, and they account for nearly 9% of the Internet traffic in the Middle East and over 4% in Germany.

When it comes to VoIP (Voice over IP), the results show that 30% of all monitored Internet users in Germany use Skype. In the Middle East, the number is only 7%; SIP follows far behind with only 1% users in Germany and in the Middle East; as for other systems, the numbers are negligible.

# Source: ipoque Internet Study 2007
# Via: Mashable

Broadband Internet Penetration In The Arab World

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According to recent studies by Arab Advisors Group, here are some numbers that give us an idea about the penetration rates of broadband internet access around the Arab world.

By end of 2007, fixed line broadband penetration as a percent of total population ranged from 8% in Qatar to a mere 0.02% in Sudan.

Qatar, UAE and Bahrain lead with 8%, 7.8% and 7% respectively. They are followed by Saudi Arabia (2.4%), Jordan (1.6%), Palestine (1.5%), Morocco (1.5%), Tunisia (1.1%), Lebanon (1%), Algeria (0.9%), Oman (0.7%), Egypt (0.6%), Mauritania (around 0.1%), Yemen (0.05%), Syria (0.04%) and Sudan (0.02%).

“While absolute broadband penetration in the Arab World may seem low by industrial countries standards, the effective household broadband penetration is much higher. This is related to higher number of people per household as well as line sharing. For example, a new Arab Advisors survey in Egypt revealed that 63.4% of Egyptian households that use the ADSL service, share their ADSL connection with neighbors. A massive 81.9% of households that use shared ADSL lines share them with more than three neighboring households.” Jawad J. Abbassi, Founder and General Manager of Arab Advisors Group noted.

“Based on the survey results, the average number of households sharing one ADSL connection is 2.98. Multiplying the reported number of lines by this figure yields an estimate for households with ADSL connections in Egypt of 956,000 households by end of 2007, much higher than the number of accounts. While ADSL sharing is illegal in many countries and does negatively affect quality, the Arab Advisors Group believes that the practice is widespread in the Arab World. The silver lining is that more households are connected to broadband Internet services which would positively affect adoption of Internet-based services such as e-commerce, multimedia, user generated content and e-government services.” Mr. Abbassi added.

# Arab Advisors Group

Almost One Million Egyptians Have Broadband Internet Access

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In a new survey of connectivity among Egyptian urban households, titled ‘Egypt Households Telecoms and Media Survey Report 2008‘, in which the Arab Advisors Group sampled 700 households in urban areas of the country, the results show almost a million Egyptian households have access to broadband connections.

According to official figures from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt had 427,085 ADSL lines by the end of 2007. The Arab Advisors Group estimates that 75% of those are residential ADSL lines, and based on the survey results, 63.4% of Egyptian households share the connection with their neighbours, around 3 other households to be precise, which puts the estimate for households with ADSL connections in Egypt at 956,000 households by end of 2007.

The survey also showed that 81.2% of Egyptian Internet users preferred to browse Arabic language websites, and that Internet cafes remain an important connection point for many Egyptians, with 27.8% responding that they used Internet café services.

E-commerce and online transaction penetration remains very limited though with only 1.3% of respondents saying they have bought products or services or paid bills online.

# Source: ITP

UAE Leads MENA Region In E-readiness Ranking

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The newly released global e-readiness rankings published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, UAE leads the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in e-readiness this year, even though it dropped a couple of spaces from the year before.

The UAE came in at rank 35 in a list of 70 countries compared to 33 last year, the UAE scores 6.09 out of a possible 10, compared to a score of 6.22 in 2007. This puts it ahead of countries such as Turkey (rank 43), Saudi Arabia (46), Jordan (53), Egypt (57), Algeria (67) and Iran (70).
The United States has toppled Denmark to be at the top of the 2008 rankings.

E-readiness is a measure of the quality of a country’s information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit.

“When a country uses ICT to conduct more of its activities, its economy can become even more transparent and efficient. The e-readiness rankings also allow governments to gauge the success of their ICT strategies against those of other countries, and provide companies wishing to invest overseas with an overview of the world’s most promising investment locations from the perspective of e-readiness,” the EIU said in a briefing paper released recently.

# Source: Zawya

Arab Online Ad Spending To Grow To $142 Million By 2011

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According to a recent study by Madar Research, online ad spending in the Arab region is expected to grow to $142 million by the end of 2011.

Madar looked at the Arab regions of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Levant countries bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, leaving out the Arab countries in North Africa.

The company said that marketers in the GCC countries spent less than 5% of their overall ad budgets on online media in 2006 and that online ad spending there represented less than 1% of the global total.

Companies in the region generally say they can still reach their target audiences without campaigning online.

Aviation travel and hospitality accounted for almost a quarter of online ad spending in the GCC-Levant countries in 2006, at $4.68 million. Banking and finance companies in the region spent $3.28 million on online ads in 2006.

The growth rate averaged of more than 50 per cent took place over the past six years. However, by end of 2006, online ad spending in GCC-Levant raised 54.6 per cent from the previous year that cost $18.71 million. Marketers saw this development as a promising sign that will push online ad spending to break the 1 percent share in the overall advertising market in the upcoming years.

# Sources: eMarketer, mediaME