JEDDAH, 30 June — The advertising sector in the Kingdom is poised to make a huge leap in the next few years, according to a media expert here yesterday.
“The volume of advertising will grow by an average of $500 million annually for the next five years, thanks to an expanding consumer market and the qualitative growth in the media field,” said Talal Al-Dhulaymi, a member of the board of directors of the GCC Advertising Association.
The Saudi market will register the highest growth rate in the Gulf region which has an annual market volume exceeding $1 billion, Dhulaymi said.
The print media will take away a major share of the market despite the proliferation of the electronic media, he said. This is because newspapers will continue to remain as the most dependable medium for news and information, he added.
Dhulaymi believed Kingdom’s entry into the World Trade Organization would help large companies in the industry while smaller ones would find survival hard. There are over 2,000 advertising agencies, most of them small, in the Kingdom.
“The Saudi industrial sector has been growing steadily because of the economic and social stability the country is enjoying,” he said, adding that this would have positive impact on the media industry.
