Introduction

Internet penetration is one of the numerous measures important to gage the progress in the proliferation of the Internet. It is a quantitative measure of the number of users relative to the population of a country (i.e. Internet users per capita in a country). There are other measures, qualitative and quantitative, that provide deeper insight on the social and economic impact of Internet in a country. Measures that, for example, include: broadband proliferation (rate of access); the volume of data exchanged per a unit of time (quantitative); and, the degree of proliferation of the wireless connectivity.

This is a report that summarizes the degree of proliferation of usage, measures by the number of users of the Internet, by the end of 2013. The rate is both very impressive, compared to the year 2000, and a source of concern.

The Good Picture

Since the year 2,000, there has been a dramatic increase in the penetration and use of the Internet in the Arabic countries. Data released today by Internet World Data indicates that the Arabic language is now the fourth language in the use of the Internet with a dramatic increase in users between the years 2,000 through 2013 of 5,296% compared to a world average increase of 676.3% [See Table 1, below, "Internet Top Languages in 2013"]. 35.8% of the Arab speakers in 2013 have access to the Internet (i.e. for every 1,000 Arab speaking person there are 358 persons with access to the Internet) compared to a world average of 39.0%, which is an incredible penetration compared to the year 2,000. [See Table 2 and 3, Arab Internet Users Report, below]

The other interesting indicator is Facebook usage where out of 5.3% of the world population is Arabic speaking Facebook penetration is 12.1% (i.e. 33.8% of the Internet Users) compared to a world Facebook penetration of 13.6% (i.e. 34.8% of the Internet users). The usage of social media is slightly lower than social media than world average. I suspect that is because of limitations on speed of the Internet in some countries. Generally, social media access and participation require faster Internet connectivity (number of Mega bits per second) and broader throughput capacity (number of Mega bytes exchanged per hour). Throughput capacity is dependent on connectivity, but also on a number of other factors like the processing power and storage capacity of numerous nodal servers that make the local and international network work.

So far the picture is impressive and very favorable for the diffusion and utilization of the Internet in the Arab Countries, particular in contrast to the year 2000, where penetration was extremely low compared to the countries of the World, particularly North America, Europe, and Japan. As per Table 1, The Arab Speaking Countries expanded the fastest in the World at an impressive rate of 5,296.6% in roughly 13-14 years. This is the highest expansion of any other major language. The Arabic speaking Internet users expanded from roughly 2.5M in 2000 to 135.6M in 2013.

We need to explore the penetration rates among the countries in the set and compare that to top penetration rates worldwide.

Please find Tables 1 through 3 in the full document available for download as PDF. Just click this

A Less Impressive Picture

The report lists the Arab speaking countries in Table 3 that provides sufficient data to analyze the rate of penetration gap among these countries in 2013. Table 3 lists the Arab speaking countries, their population and the rate of Internet penetration in each country. Table 3 is sorted, partially, by alphabetic order. I recreated the same table but resorted it by the rate of penetration (Table 4).

I segmented Table 4 into lower third (red, 0%-33%), middle third (yellow, 34%-66%), and the upper third (Green, 67%-100%). Based on this segmentation of the countries, it clear that there are 6 Arabic speaking countries that have less than 10% penetration: South Sudan (0%); Somalia (1.5%); Mauritania (6.2%); Comoros (6.5%); Iraq (9.2%); and, Djibouti (9.5%).

The quick observation from Table 5 is that the Arab speaking countries have an over-all penetration of 35.8%, which is slightly lower than the world average of 39% (Table 2). Further, 11 countries comprising of 49.8% (roughly half) of the 379M+ Arabs have a penetration of 15.9%. This is rate is really low by world standards as we shall below.

The middle third is comprised of 7 countries, with population roughly 45% of the total Arab speaking population, have a penetration of 52.4%, which is higher than the world average and fits within reasonable penetration rates. It is only below North America, Europe, and Oceania/Australia penetration rates.

The upper third of the countries is comprised of 5 countries with total populations of 5.2% of the Arab countries and a penetration rate of 82.4%, which is second only to North America, where the penetration rate is 85.9%. These are relatively small countries by population. Their total population is about 19.5M+. Aside from Lebanon, the rest are small oil rich Gulf states.

It is obvious that while the Arab speaking countries has made massive progress since the year 2000. The major share of that progress was achieved by the top one third countries with a modest progress by the middle one third, while the lower one third countries comprising about the Arab speaking population remains well behind the penetration rates of the world. It must be clear by now that without significant penetration of the Internet in an underdeveloped country the probability of success with socio-economic development is highly limited and become increasingly more cost for the limited returns.

Table 6 is inserted to provide some indication of penetration rates in various contents of the World. The Middle East, as described in the Table 6, includes the countries: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine (West Bank), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The Arab Speaking countries are listed in Tables 3 and 4. I will show the progress of Turkey, Iran, and Israel in the next section for comparison purposes.

Please find Tables 1through 6 in the full document available for download as PDF. Just click this

Useful Comparisons

Table 7 reflects for the purposes of comparisons three important countries in the Region. The combined population of these three countries is 170M+, about 45% of the Arab countries population. The average penetration in these three countries is 51.8%, which roughly the same as the penetration of the middle third (yellow) of the Arab countries.

Table 8 lists the top 10 countries in the World in highest penetration. They establish the yardstick for highest levels of penetration so far of 90.6%. It is useful to note that this number is higher that the average of the top third Arab countries (Table 5; 82.4%) and higher than the top Arab country.

Please find Tables 1 through 8 in the full document available for download as PDF. Just click this

Ends