Advertising expenditure in the GCC surged twenty percent to over $5bn in the first half of this year, according to a report released on Wednesday.
A study by the Pan Arab Research Centre (PARC) revealed that companies in the Gulf spent $5.05bn on advertising between January and June 2010, up by twenty percent from $4.22bn in the same period last year.
This compares to a nine percent growth in 2009, when advertising expenditure slumped as a result of the global downturn.
Bahrain saw the biggest increase in expenditure, rising year-on-year by 40 percent in the first six months, followed by Oman (twelve percent), Qatar (eleven percent), Saudi Arabia (nine percent), and Kuwait (eight percent). Outside the GCC, Egypt grew 36 percent, Lebanon nineteen percent and Jordan nine percent.
While the UAE registered a decline of four percent, it still held the largest share of the market at 31 percent. This was followed by Saudi Arabia (27 percent), Kuwait (21.7 percent), Qatar (10.2 percent), Oman (six percent), and Bahrain (three percent).
Khamis Al-Muqla, chairman of Gulf Marcom Group in Bahrain and a Worldwide Board Member of the International Advertising Association, said that TV advertising saw the biggest increase and grew by 39 percent and now represents a market share of 57 percent. Print media represented a 37 percent share, newspapers 31 percent, magazines six percent, outdoor four percent and radio one percent.
Al-Muqla added the biggest advertising sectors were communications and public utilities, which accounted for fifteen percent of expenditure, followed by toiletries hygiene/house care products, also on fifteen percent, government organisations (fourteen percent) and food, beverages, and tobacco (eleven percent).
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