DOHA: Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have the highest penetration of Facebook users in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. These are also the fastest growing countries in terms of users per capita despite having lowest Internet freedom rankings.
A report by the Dubai School of Government -- the Arab Social Media Report showed that 33.95pc of people in Qatar have a Facebook account with 512,060 users from its 1.5 million population.
UAE has the highest number of Facebook users at 2,135,960 from a population of 4,707,307 representing 45.38pc penetration, followed by Bahrain with 276,580 users out of a population of 807,131 covering 34.27pc of the population.
Qatar is at the third position in terms of penetration.
GCC is leading the way in usage, with the trio of GCC countries at par with a number of Western nations in terms of Facebook penetration, according to the report. The report looked at various indicators to assess which trends and factors affect Facebook usage, including digital access, Internet penetration, income and Internet freedom. Digital access, income and Internet penetration had strong correlations to usage.
Interestingly, the top three countries in the GCC with the highest Facebook penetration have the lowest scores in Internet freedom. Social media tools do not fall under Internet restrictions in these countries.
The report also showed that, like other parts of the world, Facebook is most popular among youth in the Arab region which contributed to its rapid growth.
Facebook use among the sexes in the region however differed greatly from the rest of the world with more males than females using Facebook while women account for more than 50pc of usage worldwide.
© The Peninsula 2011
