Fortune to smile on website

The Fortune Arabia stable of business magazine hopes to cash in on the growing demand for regional content online.

Fortune UAE was launched in June last year in Dubai but Fortune Arabia does not expect to have its own website until the end of this year. Initially, it will probably be free.

"We delayed a Fortune Arabia website because we need to prove the investment in the physical medium first, considering that until now paper still enjoys the trust of the market," says Bilal Hijjawi, the monthly magazine's former managing editor. "This could be changing in the next 10 years."

The main source of revenue for Fortune Arabia, the Arabic versions of the US global business magazine, is advertising.

The print circulation for Fortune UAE, produced here,is 9,500 with 9,000 for Fortune Kuwait, produced in that country.

The relatively small online advertising spending in the region has a great deal to do with the low penetration of Arabic content on the internet, according to the Arab Media Report 2011-2015.

But that is not the only reason. A tradition of free online content, and low supply, has also contributed to the problem.

Less than 1 per cent of the content online globally is in Arabic, while Arabs make up 5 per cent of the world's population, a report by Deloitte and Touche highlighted.

About 30 per cent of the population in the Middle East and North Africa region used the internet at the end of last year, says a report from the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva.

"There is growth in online Arabic content but the penetration is low compared to the potential," says Santino Saguto, a partner and consultant at Deloitte and Touche Middle East, who contributed to the report. "It's a matter of monetisation; how to generate revenues out of the online content."

Media companies can only do this by providing quality content such as television series, movies, sports coverage and music for websites and mobile applications.

"When they create websites they shouldn't replicate the content of the paper," said Mr Saguto, referring to Arabic newspapers. "There must be additional content [for the online portal]."

The value of online advertising in the region is still small, accounting for only 4 per cent of the total ad spend last year.

"All it needs is further promotion of entrepreneurship, a push from the government sector, as in Qatar's digital content cluster, and increasing regional presence of international heavyweights such as Google and Yahoo," says Mr Saguto.

Free access to Arabic content in the region has also stifled growth as consumers are reluctant to pay to enter media sites, the Arab Media Report points out.

"A majority of the population takes free online content for granted," says Shadi Al Hasan, the managing director of Flagship Projects in Dubai that creates adverts and apps. But content creation in Arabic is growing. One of the apps Flagship Projects developed is called Rufoof, which serves as a gateway to the world of Arabic magazines and newspapers as well as books. Readers can access more than 5,000 publications on its virtual shelves.

The demand can be gauged from the 90,000 customers it has attracted since it launched in 2010, in large part because the app is free to download, along with 75 per cent of the content.

"That's because we want to build the client base," says Mr Al Hasan, referring to the free content. "And that's why we need massive investment."

Following its success, Rufoof was founded as a company last year but has yet to break even. "There is huge demand for Arabic content online but the supply is poor," says Mr Al Hasan.

Mr Hijjawi echoes that view.

"While expertise to create online content in Arabic is slowly growing, the content is not that great," he says.

"You see a fascination with football, cars and singers but no serious business or science writing."

ssahoo@thenational.ae