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A snapshot of Facebook in the Arab world

Monday, Feb 07, 2011

Gulf News

UAE has highest penetration rate with more than 45% of the population signed up with the social network giant

Dubai: There are more than 21 million Facebook users in the Arab world alone — an increase from just under 12 million at the beginning of last year.

In terms of percentage, this is a huge increase of 78 per cent in 2010.

User rates for joining the site are higher in the Arab region than in some countries with the highest Facebook penetrations. This shows that the use of the site and new social media tools is catching on very quickly in the region.

These figures have been released by the Dubai School of Government in the inaugural Arab Social Media Report — the first in a quarterly series of reports focusing on usage trends of online social networking across the Arab region.

It aims to gain a better understanding of the impact of social media on the development and growth in the region, by exploring a number of key areas. These key areas include: penetration rates of social networking services in the Arab region, including growth rate, demographic and gender breakdown; factors affecting adoption of these platforms in different Arab countries (e.g. income, youth population, digital access; the impact of these phenomena on citizen engagement and social inclusion) and the impact on new social networking dynamics on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Young users

While the country average for Facebook user penetration in the Arab region is 6.77 per cent, the UAE has the highest penetration rate with more than 45 per cent of the population with Facebook accounts.

GCC countries dominate the top five Arab Facebook users as a percentage of the population, with Lebanon being the only exception. In terms of age, the young (between the ages of 15 and 29) are the majority of users, numbering 75 per cent in the region.

Although the region generally is youthful, the large youth population does not necessarily correlate to Facebook penetration rates. However, this does indicate potential for growth, the report states. The UAE is the only country in which the user penetration exceeds percentage of youth, which shows a more mature usage of the social networking site

Against a worldwide trend of a ratio of almost 1:1 male to female users, in the Arab region Facebook users indicate an average 2:1 ratio of male to female users.

Internet penetration rates were compared to Facebook penetration rates for each Arab country.

While many countries have a high internet penetration rate (the UAE at 75 per cent and Bahrain at 53 per cent, for example), not all countries have comparatively high Facebook penetration rates. Saudi Arabia has an internet penetration rate of 38 per cent and a Facebook rate of 12.24 per cent, while Oman’s figures are 51.5 and 7.55 per cent respectively.

This may indicate social and cultural barriers to using the site, which shares personal information with others.

Interestingly, the report shows that a few Arab countries (such as Djibouti and Iraq) have more Facebook than internet users, showing that people are connected to the networking site via their mobile phones.

Gulf Cooperation Council countries dominate the top five Arab Facebook users as a percentage of the population, with Lebanon being the only exception. In terms of age, the young (between the ages of 15 and 29) are the majority of users, numbering 75 per cent in the region

By Alice Johnson, Staff Reporter

© Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.