Four of Facebook’s top five growth markets—Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—are located in the region. The rest of Facebook’s 10 fastest-growing markets are also developing countries: India, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Africa. Developed countries in Europe will experience slower growth.

The more developed countries within the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—are likely to have much stronger Instagram usage rates than those in northern and particularly sub-Saharan Africa. This same trend is reflected across nearly every digital and social media trend in the region.

(Note: As in several other countries, including Colombia and Saudi Arabia, the sample surveyed by GlobalWebIndex in South Africa isn’t entirely representative of the larger national population. Instead it’s weighted toward urban [38.0%] and suburban [52.7%] internet users, and also skews younger.

As in Saudi Arabia, the UAE sample population is largely composed of early adopters—meaning substantial uptake of digital media. Males and city dwellers predominated among the internet users ages 16 to 64 polled by GlobalWebIndex in H1 2019 (see note below). Given those skews, it’s not surprising to find high levels of engagement with digital devices and activities.

Take Saudi Arabia, for example. High levels of iOS usage, combined with a desire to share and communicate privately, has led Snapchat to flourish among residents there. The UK and France will make up close to 50% of Western Europe’s Snapchat users in 2019. In 2019, 44.9% of Western Europe’s Snapchat users will come from the UK and France.

Saudi Arabia. There’s a clear dichotomy between mobile and PC usage in Saudi Arabia. Levels of mobile ownership and online access were roughly twice those for desktops/laptops. Nearly one-quarter of internet users owned a voice-controlled smart speaker in 2018—but this is less surprising given the largely young, male, urban sample. Singapore.