Abdelrahman Eliwa, Business Develoment Manager for Moheet Internet Group, talks to mediaME about Moheet's history and achievements, the evolution of Internet news, the online advertising market in Egypt and the MENA region, Moheet's future plans and more.

Q.Kindly introduce yourself and tell us about Moheet (its history in summary).

I am the business development manager for Moheet Internet Group.

Moheet Internet Group is a digital media group that provides general news; sports news, entertainment, food recipes, games, jobs, e-learning opportunities, guides & information and social.

The company is owned by Arabia Inform, the pioneer in media monitoring and Arabic media analysis in the MENA region since 1996

Moheet.com was launched in 1998, to be the first Arabic news portal. The rest of the portals have been launched since 2008 and Moheet.com became become part of our group in 2009.

Currently, we have the following group of online properties: moheet.com, korabia.com, lahona.com, alfanonline.com, bayanonline.com, shoghlanty.com, shamlola.com, gamegoom.com, betshoof.com.

Our vision is to create and distribute top quality Arabic-language content through both web and mobile, to keep all Arabs informed.

Q. Tell us about the nature of Moheet’s strength in the MENA region.

According to our third-party partners, Nielsen and Double Click, Moheet network receives around 6 million unique users with over 150 million impressions and 70 million pages views per-month. 

More than 53% from the total visits come from Egypt, 28% from KSA and 16% from UAE. The rest of the traffic comes from different countries.

Q. Over the past decade, Internet news and content has evolved. How has Moheet changed with the times, and how has it maintained a leading position?

Actually, when moheet.com started, we focused on the objective of becoming the biggest Arabic reference for news in the MENA region. We did that by monitoring other media. Then, in 2002, we revamped Moheet to become an electronic newspaper that offers original content. Then we expanded the number of topics that moheet.com covers.

In 2007 we developed a new concept for Moheet; we decided to offer information and news as well as other interactive services.

In 2009 we developed a new business plan that offers a wide range of e-content through different channels WEB, WAP, ODB, I-PAD...etc, to revamp “Moheet Internet Group” to support our advertising and to achieve high penetration in the Egyptian market.

Q. As the business development manager of Moheet Internet Group, what are the areas in Moheet’s business model that you are working on developing or growing, and are there any new products or services to be launched soon?

There are several business models that we are working on, which we feel will create significant revenues:
1-    B2B: Digital Advertising through Moheet’s network
2-    B2B: Portal Management and Content Syndication services
3-    B2B: Partnerships with ISP companies to make Moheet’s content available for their clients
4-    B2C: Developing paid applications for Moheet to be available on mobile.

For the new products, we are in the process of launching a new bi-lingual TV guide called betshoof.com, covering over than 700 channels and allowing users to customize their channels to stay updated with latest movies. The second step will be developing each portal in a WAP version through partnering with one of Egypt’s big names to run the network on mobiles.

Q. As a major internet media outlet, what’s your prediction regarding the growth of online advertising expenditure in Egypt and the GCC and what are the main obstacles to faster growth of digital advertising expenditures in the region?

For the past three years, we have faced a serious problem with advertisers who do not understand the concept of online advertising and digital world. But this year, Egypt has around 100 million EGP in the market from advertising. 

As for the obstacles, I believe it’s mainly education, as most of the agencies and advertisers still need to learn more about online advertising and how it can positively affect their businesses.

For Moheet, we’ve only started an online advertising push from the beginning of 2010. B efore, it was so hard to convince advertisers. The only ad spenders were the big and well-known brands such as Coca Cola, Vodafone, Mobinil and they typically advertise on MSN, Google, Maktoob, etc…..

Q. Tell us about the Internet media market in Egypt. There’s an active publisher scene, but what are the levels of awareness among advertisers (clients) and agencies?

The online advertising market here in Egypt is growing very fast. In my opinion, it is growing even faster than the GCC market. This is because advertisers and agencies are beginning to change their mentalities through the organization of several workshops that aim at educating advertisers and explaining the level of importance and benefits of the digital advertising scene.

Q. What are the immediate future plans of Moheet? Are there any developments or announcements you are working on?

Moheet plans to continue to grow, to encompass distribution of content on both the web and other devices, as well as the development of new brands and new channels. Moheet’s team really believes that top quality and original content are the most attractive elements for users, and therefore, the more the content, the bigger the market. This, as a result, will support our advertising plans and fulfill our goal to become the market leader in this field.
 
Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to thank my colleagues at Moheet, who contributed valuable information to this interview.
And I call on mediaME visitors to visit our group sites Moheet.com, Korabia.com
Lahona.com, Alfanonline.com, Shamlola.com, Betshoof.com, Gamegoom.com and Bayanonline.com.