Survey shows 97.5% of Saudi Arabia and UAE internet users use Google

A new Arab Advisors online survey of Saudi Arabia's and the UAE's internet users revealed that a 90.8% of respondents use internet search engines to search for information on the internet. 97.5% of those search engine users use Google. Yahoo ranks a distant second with a 43.7% share of total search engine users, while regional search engines shares are very small.

A new survey of the internet users in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was concluded by the Arab Advisors Group on March 2009. The survey report, A Survey of internet Use and Online Advertising Consumption and Effectiveness in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, was released on April 20, 2009 and provides the results of the survey. The survey covered media consumption habits, online habits and tends, online marketing and online security.

The survey report has 108 pages and 129 exhibits.

Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with major online players in the region.

The survey results encompass answers from 655 respondents that passed rigorous quality control checks that included confirming the email addresses and randomly confirming answers with the respondents. Quality control was conducted by Arab Advisors Group's team. The survey was conducted on the general internet population. The online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 6%.

Miss Noura Abdulhadi, Arab Advisors Senior Research Analyst commented, said:

"Online forums use is quite popular with 60% of internet users reporting being users or readers of a forum. From the results of cross tabulating by country, 79.2% of respondents residing in Saudi Arabia were members in a forum, while in comparison, only 37.3% of respondents residing in the UAE were members in a forum."

The Arab Advisors Group divided the survey questionnaire into two main sections probing internet users' views, use and perceptions of Online habits and trends and Online marketing.

The sections provide a balanced focus on the following areas:

Online habits and trends:

- Internet usage
- Online activities
- Online shopping
- Email use
- Browsing patterns and preferences
- Chatting websites and/or software used
- Internet search use patterns and preferences
- Frequency of reading blogs
- Membership in forums

Online marketing:

- Awareness of the different online advertising tools: ad banners, sponsored links, ad emails and pop-up banners
- Perception of online advertising

The Arab Advisors Group's team of analysts in the region has produced close to 1,550 reports on the Arab World's communications and media markets. The reports can be purchased individually or received through an annual subscription to Arab Advisors Group's Strategic Research Services (Media and Telecom).

To date, Arab Advisors Group has served 540 global and regional companies by providing reliable research analysis and forecasts of Arab communications markets to these clients.