How to explain the rise of outdoor advertising in Egypt? Every year, the sector breaks record after record. The urban landscape of Cairo and the major cities in the country is saturated with billboards, and advertisers’ thirst seems insatiable.
From our correspondent in Cairo
They can be seen from the airplane window, even before landing at Cairo International Airport. These huge billboards – often more than six meters by three – invade the Egyptian capital. And this expansion shows no sign of slowing down.
“Year after year, the number of billboards increases. Every year, about 300 to 400 additional billboards are built. The government installs billboards everywhere, develops new road networks. The more the road network expands, the more billboards there are,” says Amr El Messidi, commercial director at ADMazad, a company specialized in analyzing the effectiveness of display campaigns.
This expansion of advertising also translates into a boom in the advertising sector, according to Amr El Messidi. “At the end of 2025, annual spending on outdoor advertising amounted to 12.7 billion pounds. That’s about four times more than in 2022. The sector is booming and experiencing year-on-year growth. Real estate has dominated the market in terms of spending. Last year, out of the 12.7 billion pounds, real estate alone represented a market share of 65%,” he details.
A source of revenue for the state
By “real estate,” we mean “high-end”: gated communities in upscale neighborhoods, sea-view apartments on the Mediterranean coast, or villas with pools. This is the kind of projects that line the roads of Cairo.
“It’s a sector deeply rooted in a prestige logic. The targeting concerns owners of private cars in Egypt, who make up the target audience for this type of real estate. A real estate bubble is currently looming in Cairo, but it doesn’t really pose a problem for the government. On one hand, the state seeks to sell more land, turn them into commodities, to generate revenues. On the other hand, private developers, especially the largest ones, support the state in this project,” explains Mohamed Ramadan, an economist at an Egyptian human rights defense NGO.
An important source of revenue for the state, in addition to the rents paid by companies operating these billboards, which are rarely left unoccupied. The amounts, however, remain confidential.
Read also Egypt: in the popular district of Matareya, thousands of people break their fast together
