Demographic uniqueness makes Arab world fertile region for growth of online media, says Arab Media Outlook

The Arab Media Outlook 2008 - 2012, which based its conclusions on extensive research in 12 Arab countries, says that one common feature across all twelve markets is that young people make up a relatively high percentage of the population.

"Over 50% of the population in Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt are estimated to be currently less than 25 years old, while in the rest of the countries the under-25 'net generation' makes up around 35% to 47% of total population," discloses the report.

Terming the young population as net generation, since new technologies are often second nature to them and content delivery via online and mobile channels are probably their preferred methods, the report says that the net generation tends to behave in a very similar way when they are online, regardless of their geographic location or cultural background.

"This unique demographic profile of the region presents exciting opportunities for online media owners, content developers, operators, and all parties along the media value chain," the report predicts.

Illustrating these observations through a case study on the success of maktoob.com, the first Arabic web-based email solution, the report says the launch of the website constituted an important milestone in the region's internet development. With a user base of over 13 million, the portal has expanded from a mail program into a diverse community, creatively exploiting a wide range of Web 2.0 services including email, discussion forums, news, blogs, instant messaging facilities, games, mobile services and content for women, Outlook points out.

Citing an audit conducted by UK-based ABC Electronic, the report says that Maktoob.com received a total of 9.6 million unique users who visited over 224 million web pages in April 2008. This, according to the report, is evidence of even greater potential for the internet and its growing space within the Arab community.