The Global Yellow Pages Market is Projected to Decline to US$12.9 Billion by 2022

Waning Demand for Print Directory Marketing Hangs Heavily on the Global Yellow Pages Market, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

GIA launches comprehensive analysis of industry segments, trends, growth drivers, market share, size and demand forecasts on the global Yellow Pages Market. The global Yellow Pages market is projected to decline to US$12.9 billion by 2022, bogged down by challenges such as cannibalization of printed yellow pages with digital yellow pages, growing ubiquity of Internet search, rising popularity of mobile search services, development of innovative apps for voice based search and rising concerns over the carbon footprint of printed directories.

Yellow Pages, a published directory comprising contact details, phone numbers, and advertisements of businesses and companies operating in a specified geographic region, have over the years emerged as one of the major media advertising formats along with other channels such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Despite the steady erosion in market size and value, print yellow pages continue to be used albeit by a dwindling base of local businesses and small and medium enterprises. Factors such as the economic turmoil of recent years, general shift towards digital platform, financial troubles facing several major companies due to rising debts, growing popularity of Internet and mobile media ad formats, and increasing environmental and economic concerns related to printed directories, are negatively impacting demand for print yellow pages. Reduced spending on traditional media ad formats including the yellow pages and diversion of ad revenues to digital media and advertising formats continue to hamper growth in the print yellow pages market. With consumers increasingly shifting their ad dollars from print yellow pages to digital alternatives such as Internet yellow pages and mobile yellow pages, the global print yellow pages market is declining rapidly both in terms of revenues and print yellow page references. The print directories are also losing their share to Internet search alternative such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn.

  

The rapidly evolving advertising and marketing landscape is encouraging publishers to shift away from print-only business and adopt an integrated approach involving equal focus on print and digital platforms. The advent of new online products and services such as email and video marketing, responsive websites and social media-based products, are further adding to the challenges for directory publishers and driving them to bolster presence in digital channels and at the same time look to curtail the decline in print revenues. The growing popularity of digital (Internet and mobile) platforms thus continues to cannibalize growth in the print yellow pages market. Increasing Internet penetration, growing sales of mobile phones, rise in the number of users accessing Internet through handheld devices, time limitations, and sustainability issues of print directories are also driving growth in the Internet yellow pages market.

As stated by the new market research report on Yellow Pages, Europe and the United States represent the largest markets worldwide. In the United States, growth challenges vented out to the print yellow pages market remains insurmountable given the rapid penetration of Internet and the ensuing creation of several new channels through which directory companies can distribute business-related information to customers. Though the growing use of search engines for accessing information remains a concern, continued interest of an increasingly niche base of SMEs and local businesses in yellow pages is expected to cushion the level of decline in the years to come.

Major players covered in the report include Albanian Yellow Pages Inc., Dex Media Inc., Egypt Yellow Pages Ltd., EUROPAGES SA, Hibu plc, Sensis Pty Ltd., Trudon (Pty) Ltd., Yellow Pages Group, Yellow Media Inc., and YP LLC among others.

The research report titled “Yellow Pages: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, issues, drivers, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities of global companies. The report provides market estimates and projections for all major geographic markets such as the US, Canada, Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (Australia, China, India, New Zealand and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Latin America (Brazil and Rest of Latin America) and Rest of World. The Yellow Pages market is analyzed by the segments - Print Yellow Pages and Digital Yellow Pages.

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