The surge in social media and data usage in Qatar is opening up more opportunities for telecom to further improve their services. Data has replaced voice calls and messaging services as major source of telecom revenue for both the telecom operators in Qatar.
Availability of smartphones at lesser rates has helped the massive population of single labour force in the country to switch to internet for entertainment and app-to-app communication, spiralling the data traffic in the country. Qatar also is seeing an increasing number of users on social media platforms as Snapchat and Instagram, that focus on visuals rather than text messages. With live broadcasting services available across most of the applications, data usage has also tremendously growing in the country according to experts.
“Telecom operators now, instead of being mere line for data connectivity, are increasingly becoming sources of content, in terms of gaming, entertainment and news among the others. Data is playing a role in unleashing new forms of communication, which a few years ago, we would have never thought would become a part of usual customer behaviour,” Tamim S Fares, Head of Segment Marketing (Consumer Unit), Vodafone Qatar, told The Peninsula.
“At the moment, Vodafone Qatar’s revenue from data is close to 50 percent. It has reached that level from some 18 percent some 8 years ago. Data is now, number one driver of revenue in telecom; it is no longer voice calls," he added.
At the same time, Ooredoo's 2017 first quarter results show that the telecom operator's data revenue increased to 43 percent of Group revenue. The revenue from data contributed QR3.5bn in Q1,17.
Various government and third party researches show that the social media usage in the country has almost reached 100 percent of the population. A recent report of social media and digital trends around the world, ‘Digital in 2017 Global Overview’ by Hootsuite, a widely used social media management platform, and We Are Social, a global social media agency, shows 99 percent of the population in Qatar are active social media users. The study released in January shows that in a population of 2.42m people, 2.40m are active social media users.
The study also reveals that the number of mobile subscription is 4.55m. While internet users increased by 8 percent since January 2016, active social media users increased by 41 percent since January 2016, the study shows
"Studies shows that more than 80 percent of the market is using smartphone and data , and this is amongst the highest in the world. What we see in terms of applications in the country, the leading one, used by 92 percent of the internet users here is Whatsapp,” Fares said.
“In Qatar, we can estimate that roughly at the time of medium level promotions, 4petabytes of data is used in the market every month. However, we see roughly 30 to 35 percent growth yearly on data traffic,” he added.
Data has opened up new avenues of communications for the population in Qatar, where more than 50 percent of them are blue collar workers. Telecom sector through various social media applications have unleashed a world of free calling, for these workers. “One aspect of such accelerated growth of data usage is the Smartphone penetration among this population. Also, on the other side, in home countries where most of these workers come from, we see more availability of smartphones and increased internet accessibility,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Qatar , trend is rather shifting towards visual and live broadcasts, say social media experts. “Here, we are seeing an increasing number of users for social media platforms as Snapchat and Instagram.
Visual communication is an incredibly powerful tool and so users here are more likely to send messages in visual form than text formate,” said an avid social media user.
“Also live broadcasting is the current trend. With the competitive data rates and offers in the country, we see more and more people busy looking at the world through the lenses. The applications of social media has enriched how we communicate, making it easier and better.”
