Smartphones dominate the UAE’s digital consumption, according to Paypal’s 10-country Digital Goods Survey.
The survey of 10,000 people found UAE residents prefer smartphone gaming, with 81 per cent choosing the phone as their favourite gaming platform, rather than a PC or a games console.
They also tend to be quick to buy music and films, with purchases being made an average of five days after release. Around 70 per cent of respondents from the UAE said they’d bought a film in the last three months, with 50 per cent having bought music.
Even e-book readers favour their smartphone, with 77 per cent of readers choosing them over dedicated e-book readers.
“We know that the UAE has incredibly high smartphone penetration, which affects how residents in the UAE consume digital media. We also know that there is a high incidence of cross-border purchasing in the UAE, with customers often choosing to purchase from the US and China,” Kivanc Onan, Regional Senior Director, PayPal Middle-East and North Africa, said in a statement.
He added: “Our research insights help merchants of all sizes better understand how consumers are spending their time and money with digital goods, enabling them to cater to this growing audience.”
While many smartphone gamers — 86 per cent of them — enjoyed gaming tucked up in bed, the lounge and the office were also popular places to game. Around a third of users said they had playd mobile games in the office in the previous three months.
Google Play Music and Apple’s iTunes were the most popular music services, with Hindi streaming channel Saavn coming in third place.
While gamers and movie buffs tended to use MasterCard to pay for downloads, readers and music fans tended to use PayPal, with 31 per cent of e-book purchases and 24 per cent of music downloads using the online payment service.