Gold Demand On The Rise For GCC Search Trends
Demand for higher karat gold has taken an upward turn across the GCC during the past nine months, according to website search trend data from SEMrush, the leading award winning online digital marketing suite.
Trends for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait show a sharp increase in searches for 24-karat since April 2018. The uptake in GCC online searches for 24-karat gold has continued to increase since a significant spike was witnessed between July and August 2018.
The booming 24-karat search volumes equate to more than 1,200 online enquiries a month on average, with current searches at their greatest volume of any time in the past three years.
Searches for the lowest karat gradings have remained steady over the past 36 months, recording far fewer search volumes on average. Searches for 22-karat gold reached almost 800 average monthly online searches in December 2018, followed by 18-karat at 400 and 14-karat and 9-karat with less than 100 average online searches.
“Using digital marketing tools to track such search trends can help jewellery marketers stay ahead of the curve, while dissecting the digital data further cuts through consumer spending volatility and reveals additional insights to help direct marketing efforts in the GCC,” pointed out Adam Zeidan, Corporate Communications Manager for SEMrush in MENA region.
“Our digital search trend data also reveals that online searches for platinum had peaked and overtaken yellow gold a couple of times over the last two years, which has helped it become the second most searched precious metal online in GCC after yellow gold, but ahead of white gold.”
Further data from SEMrush shows that current average monthly search volumes in the GCC relating to the term yellow gold are at 30,000, followed by platinum at 10,000 and white gold at 1,000. The vast majority (90 per cent) of gold purchased in the GCC is in the form of jewellery, according to GCC gold industry reports, with the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) noting that the UAE is one of the world’s leading importers and exporters of gold, registering the import and export of gold at around US$30 billion annually.
