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Qatar: Technology Penetration
| Key Takeaways |
- In terms of internet and broadband penetration, Qatar is already near the European level and also growing steadily. However, this doesn't include expatriate workers who constitute a large part of the Qatari population.
- Also TV and computer penetration levels are high - mobile penetration is top-of-the-world as there are 1,2 - 1,3 mobile subscriptions per citizen!
- The usage of internet focuses mostly on simple applications, such as email.
- Online banking and government e-services are still underdeveloped.
- More information from ictQATAR's report "Qatar's ICT Landscape 09". You can find it here.
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- SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS
population age 18 and older are guest workers living in temporary housing and working mainly in construction. The number of these workers increases
or decreases from year to year depending on construction and real estate trends, impacting overall population figures. Because these workers have a
low ICT adoption rate in terms of basic ICT indicators, ICT figures based on the entire population tend to undermine the real situation. (ictQATAR, 2009)
- OVERALL RANKINGS
as the numbers of computer users, Internet users, mobile telephone, fixed telephone lines, and broadband Internet subscribers (see table).
Qatar's performance in main ICT indicators.
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
Qatar is also developing steadily, as it rose within a year from 32nd among 127 nations to 29th among 134 nations in the Networked Readiness Index
produced by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD. The residents have adopted ICT to a greater extent than businesses, which seem to suffer from
the lack of professional ICT workforce. (ictQATAR, 2009) Attracting guest workers with suitable education from other countries has been one method of
dealing with the problem.
The businesses in Qatar are mostly (80%) microenterprises, employing less than 10 people. These companies have fallen behind in the ICT
development, such as e-business infrastructure, web presence etc.). However, the Qatari government has been aggressively promoting ICT usage
– outperforming the business sector in e.g. PC and Internet use and ICT training for staff. (ictQATAR, 2009)
- MEDIA PENETRATION
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
The penetration rates based on households are a better representation of the original Qatari population, since the large guest worker population is
largely living in temporary housings and are therefore not represented in these figures.
Qatar's penetration rate of fixed telephone lines is 83 percent and actually growing. Portugal has a penetration rate of 88 percent and Finland only
65 percent. However, in modern countries wireless solutions (3G, GSM, GPRS etc.) are replacing older technology - for example Finnish telephone
companies have started to dismantle fixed telephone lines because wireless technologies are more reliable and cheaper. Against this background,
one cannot argue that the rising penetration rate of fixed telephone lines in Qatar would be a sign of modern development as such.
2. Internet & broadband penetration
Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2009
The table above compares the latest available internet penetration rates of Qatar with a few other randomly selected countries. The numbers aren’t
that high, especially when compared to Western countries. However, this is not the entire truth, since Qatar’s population has its peculiarities.
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
As of 2008, Qatar has an internet penetration rate of 38% (Figure 4) up from 31.4% in 2007 (Figure 5). This is much higher than the world’s average
penetration of 8.2%. In 2007, with a total of 351,000 internet users, Qatar was ranked 64th position out of 203 countries globally and 3rd amongst the
Arab countries. When we exclude the large guest worker population, however, Internet penetration among Qatar’s residents is 63 percent. In this case,
the basic ICT indicators are on the European level – the EU 15 average.
Qatar has a broadband subscription of 5.4% in the third quarter of 2008.
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
Qatar is the 3rd most connected country in Arab countries. However, the Arab countries generally lag behind the more developed countries in terms of
both the internet penetration and broadband subscription. For example, Bahrain leads the Arab World with a 5.79% Internet broadband penetration
(total broadband accounts by total population), but this is still much lower than Denmark’s 32%, South Korea’s 29% or the United States’ 20%.
Broadband tariffs in Qatar are said to be particularly low for the region and broadband penetration on a household level is relatively high at over 40 % and possibly higher (Research & Markets, 2009).
Source: Qatar ICT Landscape 2009
The graphs (above) show the internet & broadband penetration rates of Qatar in comparison with certain country indexes. Based on what we’ve learned,
without the guest workers, Qatar’s internet penetration rate is actually higher than the EU 15 average! However, these rankings do differ between
sources and the years the surveys are made.
The biggest obstacles for ICT penetration in Qatar as perceived by households are 1) high cost of internet connection, 2) internet not available at work
and 3) lack of skills (ictQATAR, 2009). This testimony is somewhat contradictory to our previous results. Whether internet or broadband is expensive
or not, is very much a question of comparison.
without the guest workers, Qatar’s internet penetration rate is actually higher than the EU 15 average! However, these rankings do differ between
sources and the years the surveys are made.
The biggest obstacles for ICT penetration in Qatar as perceived by households are 1) high cost of internet connection, 2) internet not available at work
and 3) lack of skills (ictQATAR, 2009). This testimony is somewhat contradictory to our previous results. Whether internet or broadband is expensive
or not, is very much a question of comparison.
The Qatari residents use Internet mostly for simple tasks, such as email and general research. More advanced use is not yet common, as the above
graph indicates. Use of online banking in Qatar is still a curiosity. In the table below are listed different Internet activities in Qatari citizens' order of
preference. It will probably require more marketing and maybe some ICT education to get Qatari people to adopt more advanced Internet applications.
graph indicates. Use of online banking in Qatar is still a curiosity. In the table below are listed different Internet activities in Qatari citizens' order of
preference. It will probably require more marketing and maybe some ICT education to get Qatari people to adopt more advanced Internet applications.
3. Mobile penetration
Qatar has a very good penetration rate in mobile phones. ictQATAR (2009) states that 97,8 percent of households have mobile phones - remember,
expatriate workers not included. This is almost 10 % more than the EU 15 average! However, despite this great development, only 5 % of mobile
subscribers had a 3G protocol contract instead of the usual GSM in early 2009. This is noticeably lower than e.g. in UAE (Research & Markets, 2009).
The second table indicates the total mobile subscriptions based on all Qatari inhabitants. Qatar's success in mobile penetration is clearly visible here,
too: Qatar even beats Nokia's home country Finland (131,39 vs. 128,76 subscriptions/inhabintant)!
Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2009
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HSauramo |
Latest page update: made by HSauramo
, Nov 19 2009, 7:23 AM EST
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Keyword tags:
ICT adoption
internet penetration
internet penetration rate
mobile penetration
Qatar
Technology
Technology Penetration
telecommunications
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