Digital Offerings to Account for 39% of Global YP Revenue by 2014

Digital offerings, such as online Yellow Pages, video, SEM/SEO, mobile, social and reputation management, will account for 39 percent of global Yellow Pages revenues by 2014, according to the mid-year update to BIA/Kelsey’s Annual Global Yellow Pages Forecast (2009-2014). The anticipated growth in digital offerings will be a focus of the agenda at BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming Directional Media Strategies 2010 (DMS ’10: Yellow Pages and Beyond) conference, which takes place Sept. 14-16 in Dallas.

According to the forecast, the growth in digital offerings is occurring globally, although at varied rates and with a different emphasis in regions around the world. Digital trends highlighted in the forecast include:

• U.S. – Digital revenues in the United States will grow at a 17.2 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) as the result of publishers selling a wider array of digital products. BIA/Kelsey expects strong growth from some of the more established digital offerings, including Web sites, SEM and video. Growth will be even more robust in newer categories such as reputation management, SEO, social and mobile.

• Europe – Digital revenues will surpass print revenues across Europe by 2014, and even sooner in several markets, including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium and France.

• Latin America – BIA/Kelsey estimates that in 2009 digital accounted for 6.2 percent of total revenues and will grow to 11.8 percent by 2014.

• Asia/Pacific Rim/ROW – Online directory revenues in Asia, Pacific Rim and rest of world (ROW) will grow by US$446 million during the forecast period, a 12.8 percent CAGR. Many emerging markets in the region, including China, are not expected to follow a traditional directory path, from print to online and eventually to mobile. Rather, directional media will follow a pattern that is more vertical and mobile in nature, bypassing print and Internet Yellow Pages as a significant product category.

“We expect to see certain publishers outperforming our forecast,” said Charles Laughlin, BIA/Kelsey senior vice president, program director and DMS ’10 conference chairman. “Their ability to do so depends on the economy and their efforts to transition into more nimble, performance-based sales organizations. Improving customer satisfaction and retention is key to this success. We’ll focus on both at DMS ’10 in September.”