How the Middle East uses Social Media: 19 standout stats from 2019

This week I dropped my eighth annual report on Social Media in the Middle East, in a new 55-page study co-authored with University of Oregon PhD student Hadil Abuhmaid.

Drawing on insights from a wide range of sources including industry announcements, news reporting from around the world, as well as data from Google, Northwestern University in Qatar and the annual Arab Youth Survey, Social Media in the Middle East: 2019 in review offers a detailed analysis of the most important social media developments in the past year.

Here are 19 standout stats from 2019

1. Mobile social media penetration in the region has more than doubled to 44% in the past five years, data from the GSMA shows.
2. 9 out of 10 young Arabs use at least one social media channel every day, although the use of individual networks varies considerably across the region, the 11th annual Arab Youth Survey found.
3. Facebook now has 187 million active monthly users in the region.
4. Egypt is the largest market for Facebook in MENA. It is home to 38 million daily users and 40 million monthly users.
5. Half of Arab Youth say they get their news on Facebook on a daily basis, some way ahead of other channels, such as online portals (39%), TV (34%) and newspapers (4%).
6. Social media users spend around 2 million more hours daily on Facebook during Ramadan. That translates to around 58 million more hours.
7. Facebook removed 259 Facebook accounts, 102 Facebook Pages, five Facebook Groups, four Facebook Events and 17 Instagram accounts, in summer 2019 “for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior” originating in UAE and Egypt.
8. In September, Twitter shared that it had suspended over 4,500 accounts from countries including the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, due to platform manipulation and state-backed information campaigns.
9. Twitter usage among Arab nationals has fallen by half since 2013, data from Northwestern University in Qatar finds. Across the six counties surveyed, use of the network among internet users has fallen from 45% in 2013 to 22% in 2018.
10. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the fifth and sixth largest markets for Twitter in the world. More than 10 million users are active on the social network in Saudi Arabia, akin to 38% of the population, and 8.3 million in Turkey (13%).
11. Twitter unveiled over 16 premium video content collaborations across sports, entertainment and news at an event in April. Partners include MBC Group and AMS, Abu Dhabi Media, Dubai Media Inc., Rotana Group, and the Saudi football clubs Al Ahli and Al Ittihad.
12. Up to 72% of Twitter users in KSA and UAE, and 62% of users in Egypt, consider Twitter one of their main sources for online video content.
13. There are more than 63 million users of Instagram in the Middle East. Data from We Are Social finds that Turkey is the sixth largest for market for Instagram worldwide, with 37 million members. Turkey is the third largest market — as a percentage (56%) of population — for Instagram in the world. Take-up is also notably high in Kuwait (6th and 54%) and Bahrain (10th at 50%.) Israel (15th at 48%).
14. Saudi Arabia is the fifth largest market for Snapchat in the world, with over 15.65 million users. Turkey, with 7.45 million users, is the tenth largest market.
15. Among Arab Internet users in six nations studied by Northwestern University in Qatar, WhatsApp is the most used Facebook owned service, with 75% penetration.
16. Half of all mothers in the Middle East watch kids content on YouTube, Google data shows. Parents in MENA increasingly use YouTube to bond and share experiences with their children, as well as relying on the channel “to act as a third parent or advisor who offers support.”
17. More than 60% of YouTube viewers in MENA are millennials. In Egypt, 77% of millennials watch YouTube every day. “That’s more than any other platform, even TV,” Google says.
18. Israel has the highest percentage of adults (77%) in advanced economies using social media, the Pew Research Center found.
19. TV dramas and soap operas see a 151% increase in viewership on YouTube during Ramadan, Google says. “Although it may appear a contradiction for Muslims to spend their fasting hours on YouTube, the holy month also marks a high point in viewership of religious content,” notes The New Arab website.

Download the full study today from the University of Oregon Scholars’ Bank, Scribd, SlideShare, Academia.edu and ResearchGate.

About the Authors: Damian Radcliffe and Hadil Abuhmaid

Damian Radcliffe is the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, and a Professor of Practice, at the University of Oregon. In this role, he undertakes a wide range of teaching, research and journalistic work, which includes writing a monthly column on technology in the Middle East for CBS Interactive’s ZDNet (which he has done since December 2013).

He has produced an annual report charting social media developments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2012. Between 2012–2014 he worked for Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ictQATAR) as an analyst and researcher. He joined the University of Oregon in 2015.

Damian is also an affiliate of the Department for Middle East and North African Studies at the University of Oregon, a Fellow of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture Studies, and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He tweets @damianradcliffe.

Hadil Abuhmaid is a Media Studies PhD student and a Graduate Employee at the University of Oregon. Her primary area of research interest explores national identity and culture in Palestinian cinema.

Hadil earned a BS in Journalism and Political Science from Bir-Zeit University in Palestine and an MA in Nonprofit Management from the University of Oregon, with a focus on Arts Administration. She is the co-founder of Filmlab: Palestine, a nonprofit company based in Ramallah, that aims at developing the cinema industry in Palestine.

Through her research, Hadil aims to examine the formation and self-representation of the national identity in Palestinian feature films produced within the historical map of Palestine by researching their production, audience, and aesthetics. Her research interests include cinema studies, diasporic studies, representations, and national identity.