DOHA: Facebook and WhatsApp remain as the most popular social media networking sites across the Arab world, reveals a new report.
The report ‘Social Media in the Arab World’ was unveiled on the sidelines of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit in Dubai.
According to it, Facebook was favoured by 39 percent of the respondents. Two out of every five users in the Arab world said Facebook is their favourite.
Jordan tops in the preference for Facebook, where users accounted for 63 percent, followed by Libya and Palestine (50 percent each).
It was least favoured in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon (24 percent each) followed by Bahrain (26 percent).
About 89 percent of Facebook users checked in daily, with the highest usage rate in Palestine and Iraq (99 percent each) and the lowest in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (79 percent and 81 percent, respectively).
WhatsApp was favoured by 41 percent. Nearly two out of five users in the Arab world said WhatsApp is their most preferred, with the highest acceptance in Lebanon and Sudan (58 percent and 50 percent, respectively). Users in Jordan least preferred it (18 percent) and nearly 84 percent have access to WhatsApp.
Preference for Twitter is the lowest (4 percent) with the highest preference in Saudi Arabia and the UAE (12 percent and 8 percent, respectively) and lowest in Egypt (1 percent).
Only 6 percent of total users said they prefer Instagram. It has the highest preference rates in the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain (11 percent each). Users in Syria and Libya least preferred it (1 percent of total users).
YouTube also has low preference rate with an average 5 percent saying they prefer it, the highest being in Qatar and Bahrain (11 percent and 9 percent, respectively). YouTube is not the preferred means for users in Syria.
The preference for Google+ is very low with (2 percent) of the total users saying they prefer it, and the highest rates in Morocco and Lebanon (4 percent each). Respondents in Palestine did not site it as a preferred means to them.
The report says LinkedIn is also one of the low-preference means for users (1 percent of total users saying it is their preferred means).
LinkedIn has the highest rates of preference in the UAE and Bahrain (2 percent each), while users in Sudan, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen do not perceive it as a preferred means of social networking. The Peninsula
