Located in Western Asia, the United Arab Emirates covers an area of 83,600 square kilometers. It has the longest shoreline in the Persian Gulf at 590 kilometers. The sovereign state was set up on December 2, 1971, and is made up of seven emirates. In the UAE, social media has become an important part of daily life. Here’s what you need to know about social media Statistics 2023Â in the UAE.
Importance of Social Media in UAE
Social media has become pervasive in a relatively short period of time. It connects individuals like never before, costs nothing, and is incredibly simple to use. So, people use social media to keep in touch with friends and family who live far away, sometimes in different countries or continents. In some countries, like the United Arab Emirates, it is especially important to be active on social media. Thus, every year a lot of expats move to the UAE to live and work.
Social media platforms are becoming a more important way to keep in touch with people, talk to businesses, and even talk to government agencies. If you want to visit the UAE, you need to know how social media can make your trip more fun. But knowing how social media works in general isn’t enough. You also need to know how it works in the UAE so that you don’t break any laws while you’re there. Social media has changed how people interact with brands and companies because they can find out about new products, deals, and announcements in real-time.
Most Popular Social Media Platforms in UAE
So, people from all over the world use social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to keep in touch with friends and family. In UAE, WhatsApp (87.4%), Facebook (81.6%), and Instagram (51%) are the most popular social media sites and messaging apps. Facebook Messenger (65.3%) and TikTok (59.7%) are next on the list.
People have been using platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Pinterest, which offer safe and private ways to communicate. When it comes to how people spend their time on social networking sites it’s clear that people spend more time on mobile apps than on desktops. So far, more than two-thirds of all people who use the internet use more than one social network and more than 80% of those people use Facebook at least once a day.
| Social Media Platforms | Percentage | Users |
| 79.60% | 6.73 Million | |
| 78.70% | 6.65 Million | |
| 73.40% | 6.21 Million | |
| TikTok | 67.40% | 5.70 Million |
| Facebook Messenger | 63.20% | 5.34 Million |
| 55.00% | 4.65 Million | |
| 48.10% | 4.07 Million | |
| Telegram | 44.50% | 3.76 Million |
| Snapchat | 41.20% | 3.48 Million |
| 31.90% | 2.70 Million |
Percentage of Social Media Statistics UAE in 2023
Social media has caused big changes in the Middle East and the United Arab Emirates has changed more than most places. So, many people in the UAE can stay in touch with their friends and family both inside and outside of the country thanks to improvements in technology and social media.
Businesses on Social MediaÂ
Statistics about social media are everywhere these days, but many businesses don’t realize that they can tell them more than just how long people spend on their favorite sites. You could find out about the people who use social networks to help you decide whether or not to join. In the UAE, there are now 9.94 million people who use the Internet. Compared to the year before, there is an increase of 1%. People in UAE are using social media in ways they never have before. Thus, UAE has one of the top emirates influencers who use the internet and the rate is about 99 percent.
Average Time Spend on Social Media in UAE
Additionally, emiratis spend an average of 3.04 hours a day on social media. Due to how easy it is to get online there are now 10.65 million social media users in the UAE in 2023. So, in UAE social media is used by 106 percent of the people. In 2023, there will be more than 810,000 social media users than there were in 2022.
Device PreferenceÂ
This is an increase of 8.2%. Social media and it is becoming one of the most important ways in the UAE to use the internet every day. Thus, people in the UAE are getting less and less interested in desktop computers and more and more interested in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Therefore, the use of phones in UAE is quickly increasings and taking the place of desktop computers as the most popular way to communicate in the UAE.
Preferred Social Media Platforms in UAE
In the UAE, social media gives people a place to meet, talk, and share their thoughts. Every day, new topics and conversations started up on social media. Because smartphone prices have dropped so much in the last few years thus, more people in the UAE are using them. So, people in the UAE use social media a lot because they can get fast internet at prices that aren’t too high. In the UAE, there are already more than 9.18 million mobile Internet users, which is 82.4 percent of all Internet users.
Therefore, stats from social media users show that the number of active users went up by 8.2% last year with more than 810,000 new users joining. Because of this, several social media trends in UAE will continue to grow in the coming days. So, with 95,000 or more new users the number of Internet users goes up by 1 percent every year. In UAE, people spend an average of 8 hours and 36 minutes a day on the Internet and 3 hours plus 4 minutes of that time is spent on social media.
Facebook Statistics in UAE
In today’s technological age, social media has become an essential tool for maintaining relationships with far-flung loved ones. So, this is true even if you live in a country like the UAE, where people live so far apart that you might not see them for months at a time. There are many social networks around the world but which ones are the most popular in the UAE? In 2023, 81.60 percent of UAE’s 8.11 million internet users will be on Facebook, making it the most popular social media site there. Thus, the UAE is one of the most important markets for Facebook. Facebook will continue to have a big effect for a very long time to come. Hence, most of the time top companies in the UAE talk to their customers on Facebook.
Instagram and Linkedin Statistics in UAE
Second on the list is Instagram, which is used by 77.50% of internet users in the UAE. In the UAE, 7.70 million people use Instagram. Therefore, the majority of Instagram users in the UAE are young people, especially teens. In 2012, Meta paid $1 billion for a new company called Instagram. So, Instagram has become a way for both people and businesses to make money. With 59.70% penetration, Dubai has the biggest tiktok office and it is the third most used app earning 26,000 AED per month. Other popular social media sites in UAE are the microblogging site Twitter (51.70 percent penetration) the employment-focused site LinkedIn (44.90 percent) and the image-sharing site Pinterest (29.40 percent penetration). Hence, business is the most popular social media platform in UAE. With a market share of 22.9%, Skype was followed by the social news site Reddit (13.10 percent).
Whatsapp and Other Messenger App StatisticsÂ
The most popular messaging app in UAE is Whatsapp, which is owned by Meta and has 8.69 million users, or 87.40% of all users in the country. With 77.50 percent penetration, Facebook Messenger, which is also owned by Meta, is the second most popular app on the list (7.70 million users). Facebook used to be the number one messaging app at the time when WhatsApp was not working in Dubai. With 39.10% of users, Snapchat, which is very popular among teens, is ranked third. With 3.88 million users, Telegram is ranked fourth with a 39.0% market share. I Message, an instant messaging service made by Apple Inc., is next with 20.20 percent penetration. Discord, a VoIP, instant messaging, and digital distribution network, is third with 14.00 percent penetration, and Viber is fourth with 20.20 percent penetration (8.30 percent penetration).
In the UAE, the Mobile Phone is the most used device with a share of 58.51% in 2023. The next gadget on the list is the Laptop & Desktop which has 39.51 percent of the vote, followed by the Tablet which has 1.95 percent. In the UAE in 2023, Google will be the most popular search engine. So, Google has a 96.44 percent market share which shows that it is the market leader. Thus, bing is the second most-used search engine with 2.43 percent of the vote.
| Social Media Platforms | Percentage | Users |
| 26.90% | 2.27 Million | |
| 17.80% | 1.50 Million | |
| 17.50% | 1.48 Million | |
| Tiktok | 14.60% | 1.23 Million |
| 5.70% | 0.48 Million | |
| FB Messenger | 4.30% | 0.36 Million |
| 2.70% | 0.23 Million | |
| Snapchat | 2.40% | 0.20 Million |
| 1.20% | 0.10 Million | |
| Telegram | 0.90% | 0.08 Million |
Therefore, other search engines used in UAE are DuckDuckGo (0.19 percent), Yandex (0.09 percent), Ecosia (0.04 percent), and Baidu (0.03 percent). With a 66.04 percent share, Chrome is the most used browser in UAE. Safari comes in second with 18.52 percent of the market share, then UC Browser with 5.56 percent, Microsoft Edge with 3.12 percent, Samsung Internet with 2.69 percent, Opera with 1.83 percent, and Firefox with 1.46 percent. Alexa says that Google news UAE is the most popular site. YouTube is second on the list then Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Future of Social Media in UAE
Social media is important in almost every aspect of our lives. So, a report from Fortune Magazine says that Facebook users watch 100 million hours of videos every day. There are so many different kinds of social media platforms now that we could talk about them for days. Thus, the point here is that social media in UAE has grown quickly over the past few years and it’s only going to become more and more popular around the world, especially here in the UAE.
