The fact that smartphone rules in the UAE is evident in any discussion on media consumption habits in the market. PayPal’s ‘Digital Goods Economy Survey’, which looks at the attitudes, habits and behaviors of digital media consumers in the UAE, reiterates this among other highlights.
“Our research insights help merchants better understand how consumers are spending their time and money with digital goods, enabling them to cater to this growing audience. We know that the UAE has incredibly high smartphone penetration that affects how residents in the UAE consume digital media. As a digital payments leader, PayPal is committed to enabling consumers to pay quickly and securely from almost any device so they can start enjoying their digital content immediately,” said Kivanc Onan, Regional Senior Director, PayPal Middle-East and North Africa.
The key findings from the research include:
The Smartphone Rules In The UAE
With some of the highest levels of smartphone penetration globally, it is unsurprising that the smartphone is the device of choice for the consumption of digital goods in the UAE.
77 percent of eBook consumers surveyed choose non-dedicated devices, instead preferring to read on their smartphones. This is by far the highest of all other countries surveyed – Russia, the second highest market for using smartphones to consume eBooks had just over 50 percent of respondents using smartphones for reading.
The trend in the UAE for consuming digital goods via smartphone continues across all other verticals, with 74 percent of video content consumers that responded preferring to watch movies and TV on their phones, and 93 percent of music streaming and downloads done via smartphone.
Even gamers in the UAE prefer convenience and gaming-on-the-go over high-fidelity graphics, with 81 percent choosing to play on smartphones rather than console or PC/laptop.
Music & Movies Become The New Impulse Buy
UAE consumers are among the fastest purchasers of music and movies/TV shows, on average purchasing within five days of release, as the availability of sites such as Netflix feed the desire to keep up to date with the latest international releases.
Movies/TV are the most popular vertical for purchases in the UAE, with 70 percent of respondents having made a purchase in the last three months. Music was the second most popular purchase, with just over 50 percent of respondents having purchased a download or music streaming service.
Niche streaming platforms are also popular in the UAE, with Hindi music streaming service Saavn polling as the third most popular platform after Google Play Music and Apple iTunes. While it only holds nine percent of preference, it provides a catalog that is mostly unavailable on other platforms, creating opportunities for merchants to provide niche services.
Bedroom Has Become The Hub For Video Gaming
The bedroom has become the new gaming hub of the UAE, with 86 percent of UAE respondents indicating that they had played video games in the bedroom in the past three months – overtaking the living room at 80 percent.
The UAE reflects a global trend for consuming digital media in the bedroom, with the US ranked second behind the UAE (83 percent) in terms of mobile games played in the bedroom, followed by European countries including Spain (76 percent), France (73 percent), Italy (69 percent), and the UK (68 percent).
‘Gaming On The Job’
While the bedroom is a strong hub of gaming activity, many UAE respondents indicated that the office was also popular place for gaming activity. Mobile ranked highest in terms of gaming type, with 34 percent of UAE respondents indicating that they had played mobile games at the office within the last three months.
The highest ranked countries for gaming on the job were the UAE for mobile games (34 percent), Russia for PC games (24 percent), and France for console games (11 percent).
Payment Methods Ease
PayPal’s compatibility with most popular sites makes it a choice payment for around 24 percent of media consumers in the UAE, and it the most popular for purchasing eBooks (31 percent) and Music (27 percent).
MasterCard was cited as the payment method used the most in the last three months by UAE respondents to purchase digital video game downloads or in-game content for their PC/Mac or laptop, as well as to purchase TV/movies.
Security concerns also drove payment method choice, especially across the gaming vertical, with 50 percent of respondents in the UAE who had purchased a game in the last three months listing ‘most secure payment method’ as a reason for their choice.
PayPal Digital Media Consumers 2016: On Behalf of PayPal, Superdata interviewed a representative sample of 10,000 consumers across 10 markets (aged 18 or over) who pay for digital content online (US, UK, Russia, Poland, Japan, Germany, UAE, France, Spain and Italy). Respondents were recruited from online panels and had all completed an online transaction and spend within the past three months of the survey.
