B2C e-commerce volume exceeded $4.87bn in Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and UAE in 2007

Total number of e-commerce users in these four countries exceeded 5.1 million people in 2007.

During the second half of 2007, the Arab Advisors Group conducted several major analytical surveys which separately covered Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Lebanon. The surveys of Kuwait and Lebanon involved face-to-face interviews with respondents from different households in the different governorates of the two countries, selected randomly in a manner proportionate to the estimated population split per governorate. Respondents in those two surveys were 15 years old and above, and were cellular service users. Those surveys provide deep insights into the telecom usage patterns in Kuwait and Lebanon. The random surveys have a 99% confidence level with a less than 6% margin of error.

As for the surveys of Saudi Arabia and UAE, these were conducted online. Respondents received an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey and answer questions online. Both surveys were conducted on the general Internet population, including both genders and all age groups across the two countries. The request to fill the survey was sent randomly to a database of Internet users in the Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Those two online surveys yield a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 3%.

"The UAE's e-commerce users penetration was the highest among the countries studied. The UAE's e-commerce users' penetration stood at 25.1%. Saudi Arabia (14.3%) and Kuwait (10.7%) followed while Lebanon had the lowest penetration of e-commerce users with 1.6% of the total population," Mr. Andrawes Snobar, Arab Advisors Sr. Research Analyst and team leader, commented.

The UAE also had the highest average amount spent per capita over one year. As for Lebanon, it had the lowest e-commerce expenditure per capita per year and per month due to a low penetration of e-commerce users in the country. However, Lebanon registered the highest e-commerce expenditure per e-commerce users. The Arab Advisors Group believes that the e-commerce users in Lebanon are in the pioneer/early adopter categories hence tend to be much wealthier and better educated than the rest of the population translating into higher spending per e-commerce user.