A new Arab Advisors‘ survey of Oman’s Internet users revealed that 40.2% of adult Internet users in Oman have used e-commerce services, at more than 158,000 which is around 5.62% of the total population in Oman, spending US$ 236 million in e-commerce transactions in 2008.
The survey of Internet users in Oman was concluded by the Arab Advisors Group on January 29, 2009 and released on March 5th under the title ‘Oman Internet Users and E-commerce Survey 2009’.
The survey covered the Internet usage, e-commerce, cellular and Pay TV usage and habits of the online community in Oman. The survey’s online field work was conducted during January 2009.
Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with Oman’s incumbent telecom operator, Omantel. The survey results encompass answers from 696 respondents that passed Arab Advisor’s quality control checks. The survey was conducted on the general Internet population that is above 18 years of age. Arab Advisors claim the online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 5%.
According to the report, VoIP usage among Internet users reached 27.0%. 20.7% of total respondents use special software packages (Skype, GoogleTalk, etc) to make calls through the Internet. The majority of respondents (73.0%) do not make calls through the Internet.
The Arab Advisors Group divided the survey questionnaire into four main sections: Telecommunications, Internet, e-services and Pay TV.