Tag: study

Net Monitor Ipoque Finds Big Gaps Between West And Middle East Internet Activity

MMM 2 Comments

ipoqueIpoque, a part-time researcher of Internet activity and trends headquartered in Leipzig, Germany, recently released the findings of a study conducted between August and September 2007, in which it observed Internet traffic in five regions of the world, to establish an overview of the Internet’s current state.

Three petabytes of anonymous data representing over one million users in Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, the Middle East and Southern Europe were analyzed as part of the study.

According to the study, P2P is still producing more traffic in the Internet then all other applications combined. Its average proportion during the measurement period regionally varies between 49% in the Middle East and 83% in Eastern Europe.

By studying the complete protocol distribution for Germany and the Middle East; the results found that in both regions, Web browsing accounts for the the second-most traffic with a share of 26% in the Middle East and 10% in Germany; not including any audio or video streaming content.

Media streaming content ranks third in Germany with a proportion of about 8%; In the Middle East it is negligible with less than 0.1%. Possible reasons include lower-speed Internet access and less media-rich content on local-language Web sites.

The third position in the Middle East and the fourth in Germany is taken by direct download links file sharing websites such as RapidShare.com and MegaUpload.com; 62 of these one-click file hosting services were studied, and they account for nearly 9% of the Internet traffic in the Middle East and over 4% in Germany.

When it comes to VoIP (Voice over IP), the results show that 30% of all monitored Internet users in Germany use Skype. In the Middle East, the number is only 7%; SIP follows far behind with only 1% users in Germany and in the Middle East; as for other systems, the numbers are negligible.

# Source: ipoque Internet Study 2007
# Via: Mashable

Almost One Million Egyptians Have Broadband Internet Access

MMM

In a new survey of connectivity among Egyptian urban households, titled ‘Egypt Households Telecoms and Media Survey Report 2008‘, in which the Arab Advisors Group sampled 700 households in urban areas of the country, the results show almost a million Egyptian households have access to broadband connections.

According to official figures from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt had 427,085 ADSL lines by the end of 2007. The Arab Advisors Group estimates that 75% of those are residential ADSL lines, and based on the survey results, 63.4% of Egyptian households share the connection with their neighbours, around 3 other households to be precise, which puts the estimate for households with ADSL connections in Egypt at 956,000 households by end of 2007.

The survey also showed that 81.2% of Egyptian Internet users preferred to browse Arabic language websites, and that Internet cafes remain an important connection point for many Egyptians, with 27.8% responding that they used Internet café services.

E-commerce and online transaction penetration remains very limited though with only 1.3% of respondents saying they have bought products or services or paid bills online.

# Source: ITP

UAE Leads MENA Region In E-readiness Ranking

MMM 2 Comments

The newly released global e-readiness rankings published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, UAE leads the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in e-readiness this year, even though it dropped a couple of spaces from the year before.

The UAE came in at rank 35 in a list of 70 countries compared to 33 last year, the UAE scores 6.09 out of a possible 10, compared to a score of 6.22 in 2007. This puts it ahead of countries such as Turkey (rank 43), Saudi Arabia (46), Jordan (53), Egypt (57), Algeria (67) and Iran (70).
The United States has toppled Denmark to be at the top of the 2008 rankings.

E-readiness is a measure of the quality of a country’s information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit.

“When a country uses ICT to conduct more of its activities, its economy can become even more transparent and efficient. The e-readiness rankings also allow governments to gauge the success of their ICT strategies against those of other countries, and provide companies wishing to invest overseas with an overview of the world’s most promising investment locations from the perspective of e-readiness,” the EIU said in a briefing paper released recently.

# Source: Zawya

Arab Online Ad Spending To Grow To $142 Million By 2011

MMM

According to a recent study by Madar Research, online ad spending in the Arab region is expected to grow to $142 million by the end of 2011.

Madar looked at the Arab regions of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Levant countries bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, leaving out the Arab countries in North Africa.

The company said that marketers in the GCC countries spent less than 5% of their overall ad budgets on online media in 2006 and that online ad spending there represented less than 1% of the global total.

Companies in the region generally say they can still reach their target audiences without campaigning online.

Aviation travel and hospitality accounted for almost a quarter of online ad spending in the GCC-Levant countries in 2006, at $4.68 million. Banking and finance companies in the region spent $3.28 million on online ads in 2006.

The growth rate averaged of more than 50 per cent took place over the past six years. However, by end of 2006, online ad spending in GCC-Levant raised 54.6 per cent from the previous year that cost $18.71 million. Marketers saw this development as a promising sign that will push online ad spending to break the 1 percent share in the overall advertising market in the upcoming years.

# Sources: eMarketer, mediaME

B2C E-commerce Study In Four Arab Countries

MMM

A recent analysis by the Arab Advisors Group of e-commerce expenditure in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Lebanon was released recently after studies based on major online and face to face surveys conducted by Arab Advisors Group during 2007.

Total number of e-commerce users in these four countries exceeded 5.1 million people in 2007.

The UAE’s e-commerce users penetration was the highest among the countries studied. The UAE’s e-commerce users’ penetration stood at 25.1%. Saudi Arabia (14.3%) and Kuwait (10.7%) followed while Lebanon had the lowest penetration of e-commerce users with 1.6% of the total population.

The UAE also had the highest average amount spent per capita over one year. As for Lebanon, it had the lowest e-commerce expenditure per capita per year and per month due to a low penetration of e-commerce users in the country. However, Lebanon registered the highest e-commerce expenditure per e-commerce users.

# Press Release: Arab Advisors Group