More Kuwaitis & expats take to social media use

Prolonged ‘lockdowns’ blamed

KUWAIT CITY, Dec 29: According to global statistics, the number of social media users in Kuwait has reached 4.26 million this year as compared to 4.25 million in 2020, which is a growth of 0.8 percent and constitutes 98.8 percent of the country’s population of approximately 4.3 million people, reports AlRai daily.

The statistics reveal the great interest that citizens and residents of the country give the Internet and social media. Social media’s presence and importance has increased as a result of the strict restrictions imposed by the concerned authorities to combat the COVID-19 outbreak during the last period. Everyone searched for various means of entertainment, and social media turned out to be at the forefront to pass time, especially during the times of the partial and total lock downs that Kuwait witnessed for a relatively long period.

The number of mobile phones registered in Kuwait amounted to 6.94 million devices, which is equivalent to 161.4 percent of the population. This is a decrease of 5.8 percent and 424,000 compared to 2020.

The statistics, which was issued by “Dataportal”, indicated that the number of Internet users in the local market increased by 0.8 percent, which is 35,000 on an annual basis.

The number of social media users increased by 2.4 percent, which is 99,000, at the beginning of this year. The rate of access to social media through mobile phones was 99.6 percent.

Speed

Regarding Internet speed, it reported that the average Internet speed in Kuwait reached 110.59 megabytes per second on smartphones, which is a growth of 137.7 percent. The average speed reached 125.98 megabytes per second for fixed devices, which is a growth of 91.1 percent on an annual basis.

The statistics highlighted that the percentage of access to the Internet through mobile phones constituted 70.6 percent, compared to 26.9 percent through computers and laptops, 2.3 percent through “tablets”, and 0.2 percent through other devices.

Also, 52.4 percent accessed websites through the “Chrome” platform, 33.7 percent through “Safari”, 1.6 percent through “FireFox”, and 5.1 percent through “Samsung” devices.

The number of social media users through mobile phones reached about 4.23 million, which constitutes 99.6 percent of the total access to it in the local market.

The number of Facebook users in Kuwait reached about 2.5 million users, constituting 71.4 percent of the population of Kuwait over 13 years of age. This comes at a time when the level of advertising on the application decreased by 3.8 percent, equivalent to approximately 100,000 ads.

The statistics indicated that 93.5 percent of Facebook users access the application through smartphones only, while 6 percent use both phones and computers to use the application, and 0.4 percent use computers or laptops to browse Facebook.

The number of Instagram users over the age of 13 years in Kuwait reached about 2.3 million, 1.9 million for Messenger, 760,000 for LinkedIn, and two million for Snapchat.

The number of mobile phone users in Kuwait reached about 6.94 million, equivalent to 161.4 percent of the population.

This includes about 60.6 percent of prepaid subscribers, and 39.4 percent of postpaid subscribers through packages with the three telecom companies in the market - Zain, STC and Ooredoo. Also, 98.1 percent of subscribers use 3G and 5G Internet services.