Advertising spending in Qatar 2008-2015, by medium
Advertising in Qatar - additional information
After discovering its earth is rich in oil in the 1940s, Qatar moved on from being a small economy based mostly on fishing and pearl hunting to a high income economy and a developed country. In 2015, Qatar had the third largest gross domestic product per capita in the world, surpassing such strong economies as the United States, Norway or Singapore. Estimates show that the country might once again be able to reclaim first spot, as its GDP per capita is set to grow from 79 thousand U.S. dollars in 2015, to 95 thousand in 2020. The most important industry in Qatar is presently the production and export of petroleum and liquefied natural gas, the country being home to some of the world's largest reserves of these fuels.
As the buying power of the country’s population increases, so do other branches of the economy, such as the construction and real estate sectors, as well as the media and advertising industries. In 2015, Qatar’s advertising spending grew to an unprecedented 366 million U.S. dollars, approximately 150 million more than in 2011. Newspaper advertising is by far the largest sector, with spending in 2015 reaching 204 million U.S. dollars, the equivalent of 55 percent of the total ad expenditure of Qatar. However, as new technologies become more popular, newspapers lose ground. The expenditure in this area has dropped by 14 percent in 2014. At the same time, ad spending in Qatar on the television and outdoor media has grown exponentially that same year. Overall, advertising spending in Middle East and Northern Africa has reached an estimated 5.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.