With Ramadan and the beginning of the new academic year approaching, advertising expenditure in Bahrain is expected to witness a substantial growth.

During the first half of this year, the growth was sluggish, not exceeding two per cent, rising from $49 million to $50m from the same period last year.

Gulf Marcom Group chairman and IAA Bahrain Chapter president Khamis Al Muqla said that according to the Pan Arab Research Centre (PARC), print media took the lion's share.

At least 84pc of advertising expenditure was for print media at $42m, out of which 63pc was for newspapers at $32m and 21pc for magazines at $10m.

Television took 13pc at $6m followed by outdoor, cinema and radio getting the remaining 3pc or $1m.

In the next four months, advertising expenditure is expected to pick up. The total advertising expenditure for this year is expected to exceed the $110m achieved last year.

Advertising expenditure in the Gulf has shown an increase during the first six months of the year, reaching $3.77 billion compared to $3.05bn for the same period last year, an overall increase of 23.6pc. - TradeArabia News Service