PC ownership also rose in India, UAE, and Vietnam. These are all countries where PCs and tablets entered the mainstream after mobile phones, and remain aspirational, particularly in middle- and higher-income households. Smartphone penetration remains stable. Rates of smartphone ownership were much the same as in 2020 and almost uniformly high.

Splitit partnered with UAE-based BNPL provider tabby, and Singapore-based fintech Fave launched its BNPL service in Singapore and Malaysia as global appetite for installment lending services increases.

The top five remitter countries from largest to smallest are the United Arab Emirates, the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, per the Canadian International Development Platform. What’s Shaping the Forecast? Economic stimulus programs. Much like remittances in the US and Mexico, remittances to India have benefitted from stimulus programs. A shift away from informal channels.

Since Emirates Airlines is owned by the UAE government, the airline reportedly partners with the government to link a passenger’s iris to a national facial recognition database.

Half or more of those in India, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore are comfortable with these certificates being used throughout their trips. But many travelers in the US and parts of Europe don’t want them to be required at all times. More like this:. Report: Worldwide Digital Ad Spending 2021. Article: Bank of America reports uptick in spending as consumers get ready for post-pandemic splurge.

For mobile, the fastest countries are United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Qatar, China, Cyprus, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Australia, and Bulgaria. For broadband, the world’s fastest countries are Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Romania, Switzerland, South Korea, Chile, Denmark, and Liechtenstein.

Mastercard will bring FinGo’s vein-scanning payments solution to more markets, and Visa is working on a biometric authentication solution for online transactions with the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

We also expect that Amazon will make moves internationally, having filed “Amazon Pharmacy” trademarks or patents in the following markets: Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, the EU, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UAE. While that doesn’t indicate imminent moves, it does signal Amazon’s intention to scale its online pharmacy beyond US borders.

Speaking with Arab News in August 2020, Hussein Freijeh, general manager of Snap in the Middle East and North Africa, explained that the platform reached large proportions of 13- to 24-year-olds in countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, and that the pandemic meant that “the need for people to communicate increased massively.