Ukraine Shows Highest Online Advertising Growth in CEE

Kyiv, July 25, 2012. In 2011, the growth of online advertising in Ukraine reached 59 percent, making it best in Central and Eastern Europe. “In 2011 the indisputable leader when it came to the dynamics of market development was Ukraine,” reads the latest annual Do You CEE report, presented by Gemius and IAB Europe.“Given this pace of growth and population size, Ukraine is a land of promise for online marketers,” add the authors of the report.

Total value of online advertising in Ukraine in 2011 constituted EUR 42 million. Russia has the second most dynamically developing market in the region. In 2011 it grew by 56 percent, exceeding EUR 1.1 billion.

Do You CEE analysts note that investment in the online advertising industry in Ukraine is rather small at the moment, allowing for faster growth, should more investment be provided. Additionally, space for industry growth is available due to relatively small number of online population. As of December 2011, Ukraine boasted 13.8 million internet users, amounting to internet penetration of 33 percent.

The report indicates a positive trend of maturing of Ukrainian online population. “It is no longer the domain of young, well-educated users from big cities, but its structure gets more and more representative and similar to the total structure of Ukrainian society,” reads the document. Nearly 46 percent of internet users in Ukraine live in large cities (over 500,000 inhabitants). Most users are late teens and young adults.

The top ten most popular websites Ukrainians use are dominated by horizontal portals and social networks, while Google takes the first spot and Wikipedia – sixth. Websites in lifestyle category benefited most from market development in Ukraine, according to the report.

Interestingly, two Ukrainian startups caught attention of Do You CEE authors – Runfaces and KitApps. The initiatives received a lot of attention from online users globally, according to the document. Runfaces’ innovation was to combine video communication with social networking, allowing to meet new people and contact them via video chats. “Within just a few days, [Ukrainian initiative] managed to gather 10 thousand new registrations and it soon went viral”, says the report.