Device importance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is often said to beat any global average. GlobalWebIndex (GWI) takes a look at this. Across all 34 of its mapped countries, it’s the smartphone that consumers are most likely to pick as their most important device for getting online – but only just. While mobiles are picked by 34 percent, laptops and desktops are hot on their heels (scoring 33 percent and 30 percent respectively).
Within Saudi Arabia, UAE and Turkey, however, the numbers paint quite a different picture. Here, smartphones have already opened up a clear lead over the other devices, with the numbers for desktops seeing a dramatic decline.
Along with APAC, that means countries within the MENA region remain at the forefront of mobile trends. This is also why Saudi and the UAE were the very first of GWI’s 34 countries to see consumers spending more time on their mobiles than on all other devices combined – a trend that can be expected to see happening in other regions too before the end of the current decade.
