Internet usage and e-Commerce in the Arabs countries

Statistics show a rapid increase of internet users in the Arabs countries and thus, more and more Arab business enter the web sphere investigating newbusiness opportunities.
The Arab world is world’s highest internet usage growth, there are an estimated 60M Internet users, and between 2000 and 2010 the region witnessed an impressive Internet usage growth rate of 1,825.2 %. The Arab internet users are 3.3% of the world internet users. The Internet penetration in the Middle East is 28.3%, while the world average is 25.6%.

As for e-Commerce, experts expect that “E-commerce transactions in the Middle East are expected to grow beyond 15 per cent in 2010, driven by infrastructural development, strong government focus on online services, and rapidly growing internet penetration.”
Reports raked Saudi Arabia the first among Arab countries in terms of e-Commerce growth where 3.5 million internet users or 14.26 percent of the population were engaged in e-Commerce transactions. And 3% of Jordan’s population use e-commerce during 2010.
Arab Advisors Group revealed that 34.6% of adult Internet users in Egypt use e-commerce. The Arab Advisors Group estimates the number of Egypt internet users who utilize e-commerce to be around 2.36m which is around 3% of the total population in Egypt.
A survey conducted by the Arab Advisors Group in 2007 showed that51.2 percent of Internet users in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reported purchasing products and services online and through their mobile handsets over the past 12 months. Based on the survey findings, the Arab Advisors Group estimates e-commerce users in the UAE to exceed 1.16 million consumers who have spent over US$ 1.15 billion over the past 12 months.

In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) around 43% of internet users have started to make e-commerce purchases at least once a month.
It can be derived from the studies above that considerable amount of Arab users are engaging in e-Commerce and this number is expected to raise in the coming years as the internet penetration growth.

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