UAE and Kuwait local cargo search dominated by air, Saudi Arabia dominated by land, reveals results of a global digital marketing suite
GCC online searches divide opinion on land and sea cargo options, according to recent research from SEMrush, a US-based ‘software as a service’ company that sells marketing analytics software subscriptions.
Trends during the last three years show sharp contrasts in local online search queries for the type of cargo transport sought, along with the related products and destinations for these shipments, differed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
The majority of cargo searches on the award-winning digital marketing suite in the UAE were related to air cargo at 94% of online search volumes, versus sea cargo at 4% and land at 2%. The top four countries most mentioned in UAE cargo search queries were India, KSA, UK and France.
Saudi Arabia leads on land transportation
KSA’s online searches for cargo put land services in the lead with 62%, followed by air at 25%, and sea at 13%. Internet cargo searches within the Kingdom mostly highlighted demand for domestic cargo services inside the main cities including Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. The most sought-after product related to cargo searches were car related, closely followed by those seeking the fastest and cheapest cargo services to Egypt and from the USA and UAE.
Meanwhile the pattern in Kuwait revealed that air cargo was the most sought after at 50% of searches, with land cargo coming close with 40% and sea cargo at 10%. Cars also featured prominently in cargo searches in Kuwait.
“Search data can tell marketers in the GCC a lot about the public’s needs and preferences. These can be very different from the needs of corporations as we can see from the cargo search patterns across its market,” commented Adam Zeidan, Corporate Communications Manager for SEMrush in MENA region.
Air cargo facilities have been expanding rapidly at both Abu Dhabi and Dubai international airports with approximately 3.6 mn tons of air cargo handled by the UAE in 2017, according to reports from both Emirates’ Chambers of Commerce. In Saudi Arabia, where most online cargo searches relate to land freight services, experts estimate there are approximately 750,000 light and heavy commercial vehicles in operation in the Kingdom, of which the vast majorities are used to carry goods not passengers.
IATA Update
Meanwhile, according to a recent IATA press communiqué, air cargo is the crucial enabler of the global economy. According to the Association, air transport is vital for manufactures trade, particularly trade in components which is a major part of cross border trade today. IATA forecasts a rise in cargo carried to 62.5mn tonnes in 2018 (+4.5% on the 59.9mn tonnes in 2017) representing less than 1% of world trade by volume, but over 35% by value.
The value of goods carried by airlines is expected to exceed US$ 6.2trillion in 2018, representing 7.4% of world GDP. Air cargo is essential to many facets of modern life. Moving perishable goods from one side of the world to the other would not be possible without air transport.
The pharmaceutical industry relies on air transport for its speed and efficiency in transporting high-value, time and temperature sensitive cargo, particularly vaccines. US$ 13.4bn is spent worldwide on temperature controlled bio-pharma logistics.
By 2021, it is estimated that this will rise to US$ 16.6bn. In today’s world, carriage of live animals by air is considered the most humane and expedient method of transport over long distances.
