Broader Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia

DISCOP ISTANBUL MARKETPLACE OVERVIEW

DISCOP ISTANBUL covers 28 Broader Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia countries representing over 530 million people, 60% of whom are under the age of 25. Around 1000 television channels are transmitting in the region, including dozens of Western channels such as BBC, Discovery, TV5 or Fox.

Over 40 million homes have multichannel TV service, which translates to an incredible 80% penetration rate, the majority of channels transmitting free-to-air. The most popular form of pay-TV service is DTH, with 3 powerful regional leaders: Turkish Digiturk (over 2 million subscribers), panarab ART and Orbit-Showtime.

Qatar and The United Arab Emirates are the most advanced pay TV markets with 70% and 50% of homes, respectively, being furnished with pay TV. Although in other countries these numbers are relatively low - at an average of 11% -, these figures are expected to double by 2014, giving the region important prospects for Pay TV.

The recent explosive growth of mobile subscribers offers a high-growth platform for content distribution. 30 regional operators already offers 3G/3.5G Cellular Services, including mobile Internet and video calling, while 13 operators offer mobile TV.

Despite this economic recession, in 2009 advertising in the MENA region grew 11% in comparison to 2008. Television remains the top advertising media in the region, telcos and government organisations remain the top TV advertising spenders. TV advertising is set to continue to rise and the total advertising spending is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 8% between 2009 and 2013. As the battle for advertising share intensifies, media companies are obliged to focus on the quality of their content.

COUNTRY	POPULATION	TV HOUSEHOLDS	PAY-TV SUBSCRIBERS
Afghanistan	28 395 716	N/A	N/A
Algeria	34 178 188	7 000 000	110 000
Armenia	2 967 004	850 000	325 000
Azerbaijan	8 238 672	2 000 000	100 000
Bahrain	728 709	230 000	47 000
Egypt	83 082 869	12 800 000	1 000 000
Georgia	4 615 807	800 000	100 000
Iran	66 429 284	24 000 000	N/A
Iraq	28 945 569	N/A	N/A
Jordan	6 269 285	1 000 000	47 000
Kazakhstan	15 399 437	4 000 000	1 600 000
Kuwait	2 692 526	900 000	160 000
Kyrgyzstan	5 431 700	600 000	50 000
Lebanon	4 017 095	1 250 000	30 000
Libya	6 324 357	730 000	N/A
Morocco	34 859 364	3 100 000	70 000
Oman	3 418 085	310 000	27 000
Qatar	833 285	130 000	60 000
Saudi Arabia	28 686 633	4 200 000	390 000
Syria	21 762 978	2 600 000	2 000
Tajikistan	7 349 145	3 500 000	56 000
Tunisia	10 486 339	2 000 000	28 000
Turkey	75 517 000	17 640 000	3 600 000
Turkmenistan	4 889 997	1 000 000	50 000
UAE	4 798 491	850 000	555 000
Uzbekistan	27 606 007	6 800 000	340 000
Yemen	22 858 238	1 125 000	N/A
TOTAL	533 199 304	95 615 000	8 697 000