UAE residents are 'webaholics'

Be it a student, a professional, a housewife or a worker, the UAE residents – not just workaholic – are webaholic also, spending hours surfing web on their smartphones.

Apart from high penetration rate of smartphones and speedy Internet in UAE, this high ratio of people accessing net on their smartphones could be attributed to teenagers and youngsters spending hours on games on their handsets as well as tech savvy adult residents reading news, banking online, booking air or theatre tickets, purchasing gadgets online through their handsets.

According to a Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry report based on Euromonitor International’s data, communications, including mobile phone usage and Internet, grabbed 7.8 per cent of consumer spending in 2014.

Recently rated among the world’s top three most connected countries, a newly-released underlines this claims, saying that the UAE residents are the second highest time spenders online on mobile phones.

GlobalWebIndex data showed that people in the UAE on average spend just over four hours per day online on their handsets – second to Brazil’s 4.5 hours.

Saudi Arabia is the only other regional country in the world’s top 10 countries for highest daily time spent online on mobile by their citizens.

Globally, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and other Latin American countries feature prominently on the list. The UAE is closely followed by Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Mexico, Argentina and India.

"Globally, online adults are now devoting an average of just over 6 hours per day to the internet, with mobiles making up just over a third of this time. It’s Brazil which is leading the way here; digital consumers in this market are averaging a mighty 4.5 hours on mobile, accounting for almost half of the total time they spend online," GlobalWebIndex said in a note.

Conducted in the first quarter of 2016, the survey was based on users aged between 16 and 64.

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