Consolidation in the regional Internet space

The failure of Planetarabia.com and the poor performance of other regional portals, such as Arabia.com and Albawaba.com, have cast a shadow over the development of the regional Internet.

Indeed, the most popular general Internet portal in the Middle East remains Yahoo! by a very wide margin. However, among the specialist websites there have been some interesting developments that are in danger of being overlooked.

AME Info has moved from 20,000 on the industry standard Alexa.com rankings in May to 4,915 today (October 11th). This spectacular leap in page views follows the launch of the MyAMEInfo.com website platform in May this year.

By contrast rival regional business information website Zawya.com has fallen from around 20,000 in May to be ranked at 66,738 today.

Another clear winner in the past year is Maktoob.com, the Arabic language general portal. It boasts an Alexa.com ranking of 1,387, the highest of any regional website.

This contrasts with the performance of Arabia.com with a ranking of 2,601 and Albawaba.com at 3,060. However, these portal traffic figures are substantially flattered by the inclusion of email traffic.

So the net result is that Internet viewers are consolidating the regional Internet market. The general portals have never really got off the ground, despite huge investments by their owners. This market remains the province of global giant Yahoo!.

Meanwhile, AME Info and Maktoob have managed to secure the two main specialist niches, the business information market and the Arabic language platform.

After consolidation in a business sector, dynamic expansion is normally the next phase. This should now follow in the Middle East Internet space.

Certainly the substantial audiences now secured by Yahoo!, AME Info and Maktoob should prove more and more attractive to advertisers and sponsors. Now that the public has voted with its mouse for the regional champions this is a valuable media opportunity waiting to be fully engaged.