Mobile technology has grown rapidly in the Middle East and North Africa region, but divides still exist. While smartphone penetration is high in places like the UAE and Qatar, many cannot afford broadband services. There are also differences in access to advanced technologies between regions. Going forward, priorities include closing digital divides, planning for new divides as newer technologies emerge, developing demand-led services, increasing Arabic digital content, and addressing privacy concerns. Reasons for optimism include the region's youth population, successful case studies of mobile services, new collaborations and infrastructure projects, and audiences finding their own solutions within existing technologies.

1. Where next for mobile
in the Middle East?
November 2014 Damian Radcliffe

2. Running Order
1) MENA overview
2) Policy considerations
3) Reasons for optimism

3. MENA
overview
Key points

4. 1. Digital Pioneers
Key Data Points:
• UAE and Qatar have the world’s highest level of smartphone penetration (80%).
• 50% of YouTube views in Saudi Arabia - and 40% in UAE - are via mobile devices.
• Across 19 Arab countries there are 404 million mobile connections.
– Up from 19 million in 2002. Only sub-Saharan Africa has seen faster growth.

5. 2. Digital Divide
Key Data Points:
• Wide variance in advanced technologies usage e.g. 2G vs 3 or 4G. Tablets etc.
• World Bank has reported that 60% of people in Algeria, Djibouti, Morocco, Syria,
Tunisia, and Yemen, "cannot afford fixed and/or mobile broadband services".
• There are 195 million subscribers for MENA’s 404 million mobile connections.

6. 3. Drivers of use vary
Key Insights:
• Has been an agent for change.
• Status – not services – is often a driver for device ownership.

7. 4. Penetration vs Depth of Use
Key Insights:
• High levels of take-up, especially in GCC.
But:
• Lack of awareness, skills, issues of DRM and availability, often means low breadth
and depth of technology usage (e.g. number of apps used, or even downloaded).

8. 5. Balancing ICT and cultural values
Key Data Points:
• Internet users in the region want to see more filtering of online content.
• Especially material which could be harmful to children, pornography and
racist/discriminatory content.
• Traditional methods of banking and commerce – face-to-face – prevail.

9. Moving Forward

10. 1. Closing Digital Divides
Key issues:
• North Africa vs. GCC
• Key Demographics: Women, Youth and Rural Communities.
• Skills.
• Affordability.
• Infrastructure.

11. 2. Plan now for new divides
Key Points:
• 2 and 3G vs 4 and 5G.
• And potential solutions; like Mozilla's $25 smartphone

12. 3. Demand led new services
Key Insights:
• Meets consumer needs, not driven purely by tech possibilities.
• Mobile friendly.

13. 4. Arabic Digital Content for Mobile
Key Data Points:
• Only 3% of the Internet is in Arabic.
• But fifth most widely used language worldwide, spoken by at least 293 million .
• More articles on Wikipedia in Norwegian than Arabic.

15. 5. Address privacy concerns
Key Insights:
• MENA audiences are strongly against data repurposing.
• But less concerned about being monitored online data collection.
• Transparency of industry practice; and improved consumer awareness needed.

16. Reasons to be cheerful

17. 1. MENA’s Youth Bulge
Key Insights:
• Tech savvy. Entrepreneurial. Want Arabic content.
• Mobile natives.
• Very heavy users of technology – yet also feel ICT is detrimental to family
relationships, despite preferring electronic interaction above face-to-face.

18. 2. Great case studies exist
• Anou is a mobile website allowing Moroccan artisans with low tech-skills to sell
items directly to online buyers around the globe.
http://www.theanou.com/about

19. 3. New services and collaboration
Key Insights:
• MOU between GSMA and the 8 major mobile operators for network sharing.
• 3G and 4G roll out in markets – e.g. Iraq and Algeria - previously left behind.

20. 4. Audiences find their own solutions
Key Insights:
• The rise of Chat Apps.
• Conservations around closed networks on the rise.
• Instagram and WhatsApp as tools for mCommerce.

21. 5. Tech Parity
Key Insight:
• MENA households full of technology. Great foundation to move forward.

22. • We Are Social: Social, Digital & Mobile in
The Middle East, North Africa & Turkey
[July 2014]
• GSMA: The Mobile Economy 2014, ARAB
STATES [October 2014]
• ictQATAR: Research round-ups (monthly
and quarterly)
“The attitudes of online users in the
MENA region to cybersafety, security and
data privacy.” [En/Ar] (September 2014)
• World Bank: Report, Broadband Networks
in the Middle East and North Africa:
Accelerating High–Speed Internet
Access (February 2014)
Find out more

23. Damian Radcliffe is a journalist, researcher and analyst.
He runs the Rassed research programme at Ministry of
Information and Communications Technology in Qatar;
and is an Honorary Research Fellow and PhD Student at
Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.
He has written about the Middle East, journalism,
technology and innovation for a range of outlets including:
Abramis Academic Publishing, BBC College of Journalism,
Huffington Post, journalism.co.uk, Knowledge Bridge
(Media Development Loan Fund), NESTA, Online Journalism Blog,
Ofcom, Routledge, Your Middle East and ZDNet.
Thanks for listening
View Damian’s extensive writing and research portfolio at:
www.damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/writing or email him damian.radcliffe@gmail.com