Newspaper Industry Witness Disruption In UAE Due To COVID-19 Crisis.

The current crisis has forced people to stay inside their houses. Several businesses are confronting adverse outcomes due to the circumstances of lock-down across the planet. The familiar lifestyle of people has changed. Human beings are struggling to finish off their daily life work, as there are limited resources available. In these times of adversity, several lines of work are closing or transforming themselves according to the new trends, sustaining, in a new era.

However, the crisis has also provided us with opportunities. Our Earth is healing, the rivers and oceans are cleaning themselves. The air is less polluted, the biggest ozone layer hole is healing by itself. It’s not just the Earth showing good signs of healing and development, many business models have also blossomed. These emerging markets were struggling to survive from old unstoppable human rituals. 

Humans are now learning new ways to live. We are learning social isolation, but being a social animal we can’t stop interacting.

Therefore, social networking platforms have seen a sudden increase in their viewers. Even new viewers are joining on a daily bases. The time spent by them on these platforms has increased.

It’s not just limited to the social networking platforms, e-commerce has also seen a high rise in its user database. Hundreds of thousands of new users have changed their purchase habits, now they are shopping online for their needs and will continue to do the same.

Since centuries news has been a crucial part of our everyday life! To satisfy this need newspapers have played a crucial role in delivering the information to us. During the early days, the news was shared among each other verbally. To share news over long distances trained birds were used to deliver handwritten notes over long-distance. Soon, time changed and things developed. Our world became modern, we started using printed sheets of paper to publish news.

The culture of printed newspaper sheets stayed with us like a lifestyle for centuries now. In the digital age and emerging markets, the digital platforms started publishing the news on their digital platform(E-Newspaper). This epidemic has increased the number of viewers and subscribers for these digital platforms.

In today’s world, we must read the news and get updates from authorized sources. The situation has made paper media a less favorable option for everyday usage. People are preferring digital platforms(E-Newspaper) to keep themselves updated with the news.

In UAE leading news platforms ALBAYAN.AE and EMARATALYOUM.COM have reported an enormous amount of audience shifting onto their digital platforms during this period of crisis. They have experienced a huge increase in their unique users as well as a massive increase in daily viewers of their E-Newspaper.

Nearly 6 out of 10 people are reading news on online platforms. According to the reports, around 46% of people spend time reading news via online platforms.

ALBAYAN.AE

ALBAYAN.AE is one of the most preferred newspaper in the UAE. Even in this time of crisis, it stayed as the most prominent and trusted source for people to gather information. However, the only thing that has changed is the source of ALBAYAN.AE. Earlier people preferred a printed copy of the newspaper, but now most of its audience has shifted to its digital platform(E-Newspaper). 

In 2019 March, ALBAYAN.AE had 867k unique users on its digital platform. Whereas in March 2020, its unique user database has increased to 1.7 million. It’s an increase of +94% in the digital user database. Next month in April 2020, this number further increased from 1.7 million to 3 million which is a +77% increase in unique user data.

Also, the page views of AL BAYAN in March 2019 were 4.1 million. In March 2020, the views increased to 13.8 million(+231%) which was a record-breaking increase viewership. It is still increasing, as per April 2020, the total number of views was 15.3 million, which was another +12% increase in total viewers

Image Credit – Campaignme.

From last year, this year Ramadan has shown a significant increase in unique users. The growth rate is +87%, the numbers add up to 1,335,460 unique users. Viewership has increased +177% since last year, the numbers add up to 9,349,310. These are the data of the first three weeks of Ramadan ie. from 24th April to 12th May 2020.

EMARATAL YOUM

EMARATAL YOUM is a wonderful reference for people staying in UAE. It helps them to stay updated with the news, and laws that are being introduced, or old ones that are updated.

The digital user base of EMARATAL YOUM has increased tremendously. In the year 2019, March the total number of unique users that EMARTAL YOUM had was just 804K.

In March 2020, this number increased to 2 million showing an increase of +149%, and another +55% in the month of April making the number of users rise to 3 million.

The viewership of EMARATAL YOUM in March 2019 was 5.1 million. The numbers skyrocketed to 17.5 million(+238%) in March 2020. In April 2020 it is setting a benchmark for the number of viewers at 18 million(+3%).

In the month of Ramadan, the unique user base has shown an increase of +76% (1,283,908), and the viewership increased to +141%(10,031,460).

This huge increase in numbers is an indication of the digital boom in the UAE. Hence, brands should make sure that they connect to their consumers as several portals of opportunities are opening. Also, they can advertise their products or do promotions as time is most opportune.

Some of the other famous newspaper of UAE which is receiving a hugely positive response on their e-platforms are listed below:

•  Khaleej Times

To increase the viewership, Khaleej Times is providing free E-Newspaper for its users. The viewership of the newspaper has also increased at a huge pace.

•  National.ae
• Gulf Business news 
• Sport360
• YOUM7
• Al-Masry al-Youm.