Page 49 - SAMENA Trends - January 2022

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

UAE Tops ICT Index in Gulf with 5.43 Points

The Information and Communication
Cooperation Council countries for the Year UAE
Technology (ICT) use index in the Gulf

2021, said the percentage of Internet users in
the GCC countries, which occupied a leading
position at the regional and global levels,
exceeded 98 percent, and that the percentage
of mobile phone subscribers reached 137.66
percent of the total population during 2021,
reports Al-Rai daily. The report issued by
“Orient Planet Research”, the independent
unit of the “Orient Planet” group, showed
that the Gulf countries were able to achieve
a major leap in the use of information and
communication technologies during the
past two decades that made a difference in
the services provided to users through the
development of digital infrastructure. The UAE
topped the ICT use index for the Gulf countries
for the year 2021, which measures the rate
of Internet penetration and communication
services, achieving 5.43 points, while Kuwait
came second with 3.74 points, followed by
Saudi Arabia third with 3.64 points, Qatar fourth
with 3.62 points, Oman was fifth with 3.49
points and Bahrain sixth with 3.38 points. On
the index of the number of Internet users, Kuwait
came fourth with 98.6 percent, second in the index
Kuwait of the number of mobile phone subscribers with
158.53 percent, sixth in the index of the number
of fixed broadband subscriptions with 1.73%,
and second in the index of the number of mobile
broadband subscriptions at 127.44 percent.
The mobile phone services and information
technologies, the report said, developed rapidly
in the GCC countries, in light of private sector
companies entering the communications market,
which significantly increased the number of
users, to enhance the usage of digital economy
in the region, and its contribution to increasing
productivity levels, competitiveness, and the
development of new mechanisms for accessing
government e-services, to keep pace with the
upcoming industrial revolution, and update
artificial intelligence and the Internet. As for the
number of fixed phone lines, the UAE topped the
GCC countries in terms of the number of fixed
phone lines relative to the population with 24.07
percent, followed by Saudi Arabia with 16.51
percent, Qatar with 15.78 percent, while Bahrain
ranked fourth with 15.67 percent, Kuwait fifth with
13.66 percent, and Oman last with 12.68 percent.

49 JANUARY 2022