OLX Oman 2015 report highlights popular consumer search patterns

‘Apartments for rent in Muscat’, ‘Toyota’ & ‘Sales’ are the highest on demand in the Sultanate within the property, auto and job sections respectively on OLX Oman in 2015

MUSCAT: Following a successful rise of the OLX brand in Oman in 2015, the leading online classified platform in the Mena region compiled a detailed report for the year that was, pertaining to its Oman users with figures that reflected interesting consumer search patterns, demand and supply behaviours as well as the most frequent items sought out on OLX Oman in a variety of categories.

The high traffic on this online platform validates the credibility, popularity and even reliance on OLX in Oman, says a press release.

Commenting on the results of the 2015 report, Abdallah Touqan, Senior Public Relations and Com- munications Lead at OLX Mena, stated: “The report is a key indicator of how the Oman residents perceive OLX as a trust-worthy, free and easy method to find their dream car, their aspired job or relocate to a new home.”

Properties on OLX Oman

Property ads on OLX has facilitated thousands of property deals in Oman in 2015 with 27,183 2BR apartments, 10,901 3BR apartments and 10,737 1BR apartments listed for rent. Alongside the apartments listed for rent, were a fine number of apartments for sale with 1,731 2BR apartments, 657 3BR apartments and 360 1BR apartments listed on the OLX Oman platforms. There were also a number of villas on rent with as many as 8304 5BR, 7520 4BR and 4508 6BR villas.

The number of villas listed for sale was 2,615 5BR, 2,029 4BR and 1,779 6BR villas. Deducing from the data, the top three areas on demand in Oman for rent were Muscat, Bausher and Al Seeb, while the top three areas on demand for sale had Al Seeb on the top followed by Muscat and Bausher.

Looking at numbers, the top three areas for rent in Oman with regard to apartments had Muscat featuring on the top with as many as 20,869 ads, followed closely by Bausher with 19,349 and Al Seeb with 7,151. The top three areas for rent in Oman pertaining to villas saw Bausher as the most popular option with 11,505 ads, followed by Muscat with 8,462 and Al Seeb with 5,526. The top three areas which had the maximum apartments for sale in Oman were Al Seeb with 986 ads, Bausher with 827 and Muscat with 826 ads.

The same order followed for villas on sale with Al Seeb having 3,539 ads, followed by Bausher with 1,604 posts and Muscat with 1,397 ads. Keywords play a key role in understanding consumer interests and OLX Oman highlighted the most popular words that users keyed in while searching for properties for rent. Azaiba, the Wave and Al Khuwair were the once most searched and data accumulated also showed that consumers expressed a desire for ‘furnished’ properties. With regard to sale of properties, The Wave, Al Amerat and Bausher proved to be the most preferred.

Overall, the top three areas in demand for rent were Muscat, Bausher and Al Seeb, whereas the top three areas in demand for sale were Al Seeb, Muscat and Bausher.

Autos on OLX Oman

OLX Oman autos section proved to be one of the most popular among the residents of Oman - with a specific taste and preference towards the colours black, white and red, the most searched cars on OLX Oman for 2015 were Toyota, Nissan, Lexus followed by Mercedes and Hyundai.

The cars listed, on the other hand, had as many as 37,460 Toyotas, followed by 21,015 Lexus cars and 187,59 Nissan models. Hyundai and Mercedes followed suit with 8,387 and 7,750 ads respectively. The five most frequent keywords used were Prado, Pajero and Toyota, Lexus and Camry. Users also resorted to the keyword ‘urgent’ which appeared as the sixth most used word. Yaris, BMW, Jeep and Honda were part of the searches as well.

Jobs on OLX Oman

As far as the job sector was con- cerned, OLX Oman had 1,455 job ads in the education sector, 1,059 posts related to sales, followed by 897 in Accounting and 773 and 729 posts for hospitality and architecture/engineering respectively. Jobs at the ‘sales’ sector were the most searched for by the residents of Oman followed by accounting and medical/health. Education and hospitality were the other sectors frequently searched on OLX Oman. The top three keywords used to search jobs were ‘driver’, ‘maid’ and ‘sales’. Users also expressed an interest in ‘part-time’ jobs. Other key search words included ‘electrical’, ‘safety’, ‘security’, ‘teacher’, ‘mechanical’ and ‘architect’. Inferring the derived statics, OLX Oman reflected varied levels of education for its users/applicants with 16.2% Bachelor degree holders, 42.08% Master degree holders and 41.72% others at different educational levels.

Striking an otherwise good balance between the Arabic and English visits, the statistics did record a 15.84 per cent higher traffic on the OLX Oman Arabic platform. Used by both locals as well as expats, OLX is one of the most preferred platform that provides a quick and easy trading ground for a host of requirements that range from automobiles, real estate, household and electronics items to even jobs, via its mobile app ‘OLX Arabia’, mobile site and website.