PARC has published its 2008 advertising statistics and analysis for the region, showing a rise in some countries and the fall in others.

Middle East advertising expenditure shows a spike of 25%, reaching almost $10 billion.

$4.3 billion (around 43%) is generated by T.V., which is not surprising, leaving the remaining 57% to Print, Radio, Outdoor, and Cinema.

Looking at the geographic split, Pan Arab expenditure, as was the case in previous years, is the highest contributor at $3.7 billion. The UAE market follows at $2 billion, leaving Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia competing for third place at $1.1 billion.

As for spending traits, summer is when advertising peaks with 29% of the annual expenditures, with winter being the lowest season of expenditure at 21%. This is applicable to almost all of the markets.

For a full report click on the follwoing link, PARC 2008 Advertising Markets Report

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The 2008 numbers for advertising expenditures have been announced by IPSOS. The Middle East shows a consistent growth reminiscent of previous years growing by around 18% from $9 billion to $11 billion from 2007 to 2008 compared to $7 billion to $9 billion in the earlier year. This consistent growth shows that the market is yet to feel the brunt of the global financial crisis.

As expected, T.V. continued to take the lions-share of the advertising expenditure, now securely mirroring the advertising patterns in the more advanced advertising markets of North America and Western Europe. T.V. accounted for 46% of all spend, taking a giant slice of the pie of close to $5.2 billion. This was followed by press, outdoor, radio, and with cinema taking the last place.

In terms of ad spend by geographical region, PanArab advertising continued to dominate the charts with a healthy $4.3 billion. In terms of individual countries, the UAE continued to get the biggest share with $3.1 billion in advertising, with KSA trailing a close second.

Finally, sector specific advertising continued to be dominated by the real estate sector, with spending in that sector close to $1.7 billion. Simultaneously, this sector garnered the largest growth from 2007 to 2008 from 750 million to its current status. The Health and Beauty sector came second with total expenditure of $1.2 billion in 2008.

Get the IPSOS 2008 Middle East Ad Expenditure for Full Report

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The first half of 2008 still shows that the United Arab Emirate is ahead Saudi Arabia in advertising expenditures, according to numbers provided by Ipsos. The total advertising spend in the UAE in the first half of 2008 was a whopping 1.1 Billion USD, while the total advertising spend in Saudi Arabia was less than 600 million USD.

Pan Arab media took the lion’s share with 40% of the total spend, leaving 10 other markets in the Middle East with 60% of the total spend that reached 4.9 Billion USD.

The GCC market, represented by UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman generated almost 44% of 2007 advertising spends, which was more than the Pan Arab market. The advertising scene in UAE witnessed an increase in spends that reached to 22% of ad spend, leaving the country in the first position in the domestic Arabian markets. Saudi Arabia, which came second among domestic markets, scored only 12% of total advertising spends.

The report covers three Levant countries, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Lebanon recorded 312 Million USD. Jordan has a spend of 141 Million USD and Egypt had 297 Million USD.

You can download the full report with numbers and percentages provided by Ipsos by clicking here, for more details please visit Ipsos.