As part of their series of reports on the social, digital, and mobile landscapes of hundreds of countries from around the world, We Are Social (http://wearesocial.net) share a very interesting report on countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey.
The countries detailed in this report are: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The Internet in MENAT
As in so many other areas of life, internet usage in the Middle East is a story of variety. There’s a huge disparity in terms of access, from almost complete penetration in Kuwait to barely 8% in Iraq:
Interestingly, however, the role of mobile access is still very low in the Middle East:
Given the high rate of internet penetration in Kuwait, as well as that country’s relatively higher adoption rate of mobile internet, We Are Social believes that mobile devices will be the key driver of improved internet access throughout the region in coming months, and they’d expect overall numbers to increase significantly in the near future.
Social Media
Social media continues to grow in MENAT, with many countries showing strong penetration figures:
However, despite Facebook’s dominance in terms of user numbers around the region, it remains blocked in Iran.
Meanwhile, Facebook does not release user figures for Syria, although recent evidence suggests that it’s still a powerful platform within the country.
Mobile is a key component of social media usage in the region, with many countries seeing impressive figures for access on the go:
Mobile
Despite the lower-than-expected numbers for mobile internet adoption, mobile usage in the region is strong and growing, with most countries exceeding the global average:
However, 3G access remains elusive even in the most developed nations, and the vast majority of the region’s population continues to rely on lower-speed connections:
To download We Are Social’s report which includes the complete data for 20 of the region’s key economies, please
