Growing up with the Internet

A figure of 6% is often quoted. TNS felt that with the rapid developments in the region internet access or penetration in Saudi Arabia must be growing, and certainly higher than 6%.

So, between October 2003 and April 2004 TNS conducted its own independent survey among 6,000 Saudi respondents (male 47%, female 53%) aged 15 to 49 years: and asked the following questions through its syndicated tracking tool, TNS Tracker Plus.

• Do you access the internet?

• From where/who do you access the internet?

• From where do you access the internet most often?

• How frequently do you access the internet?

• What time do you usually access the internet?

• What do you normally use the internet for?

• How many hours in an average week would you spend sending/receiving e:mail?

• How many hours in an average week would you spend surfing the net for reasons other than sending/receiving e:mail?

As we suspected at an overall level access to the internet has grown and is now at 18% in Saudi Arabia.

Access is highest among 15 to 24 year olds at 20% and lowest among 35 to 49 years olds at 16%. Big and expected differences exist between social classes with access at 39% in the higher social classes and 4% in the lower classes.

Saudi men access the net most often from home (47%), office (29%) and internet cafes (23%) - which of course is a very popular outlet for the youth, 15 to 24 years old, (36%). Not surprisingly, Saudi females almost all access the internet from home (93%).

Just over a fifth (22%) access the internet daily, and about 3 times a week on average. The most popular times for using the internet is between 6 p.m. and 12 midnight.

In an average week men spend about 2 hours sending/receiving emails and about 3.2 hours surfing the net - in contrast women spend 3.3 hours and 3.8 hours respectively on each of these two activities.

So, the internet is now being used for more than just sending/receiving emails. Most notably, it is now used for chatting (38%), listening/downloading music/movie clips (30%) and playing/downloading games (19%) - and of note - this is even higher among 15 to 24 year olds at 48%, 41% and 27% for each of these activities respectively.