Dubai: Apple's iPad has emerged the tablet of choice in a new survey of Middle East subscribers of global social online portal Netlog. The all-Arabic social site in the region conducted an online poll of its nine million members, including 700,000 in the UAE, in which 1,724 respondents voted the iPad over competitors.
"Apple as a brand still dominates the region," said Amir Esmail Bozorgzadeh, special projects manager at Netlog's parent company Massive Media. "It's becoming more and more normal to own this technology."
Regionwide, figures suggested that 43 per cent of respondents across the Middle East chose iPad over other tablets with the closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, ranking second at nine per cent.
The Acer Iconia earned eight per cent of votes followed by HP TouchPad with six per cent. The Dell Streak and Motorola Xoom tied for fifth place with five per cent of the votes while BlackBerry Playbook tablet score four per cent of tabulated votes. A clear divide emerged when survey figures were examined on a country-by-country basis, Bozorgzadeh said.
According to the survey findings, iPads were more common in Middle East countries reporting a higher disposable income. In poorer countries such as Egypt, the iPad's popularity fell markedly.
Of 1,080 Saudi respondents, 54 per cent said they preferred the iPad while only 12 per cent chose Samsung and three per cent chose the BlackBerry Playbook. In the UAE, 60 per cent of 199 respondents liked the iPad best while five per cent chose the BlackBerry Playbook and four per cent said they preferred the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
In Egypt, only 19 per cent of 185 respondents said the iPad was best, opening the field for competing tablets to register a stronger presence in the market.
Second ranked was the Dell Streak at 15 per cent with Acer Iconia coming in third place with 11 per cent of votes cast. "Outside Egypt, it could be that people are less conscious about being seen with an iPad," said Bozorgzadeh.
He also suggested that consumers in Egypt "may not be paying attention to the media hype toward Apple in general. It's a different market away from more western advertising campaigns."
Gartner forecast in May that 2011 will be a banner year in IT spending, thanks in part to the sales of new tablets on the market.
Global IT sales are expected to total $3.6 trillion (Dh13 trillion) in 2011, Gartner said, a 5.6 per cent increase from $3.4 trillion in 2010.
Richard Gordon, research vice-president at Gartner, said: "The Middle East share of global IT spending is approximately two per cent. While the political unrest affecting many countries in the region may well dent IT spending levels, any impact would be insignificant at the global level."
Gartner is predicting a massive spike in tablet sales in 2011.
"Worldwide media tablet spending is projected to reach $29.4 billion in 2011, up from $9.6 billion in 2010. Global spending on media tablets is forecast to increase at an annual average rate of 52 per cent through 2015," Gartner said.
Dubai A quick check by Gulf News to gauge the popularity of Netlog's community in the UAE for example, showed that the social portal is a highly sought after online destination, according to tracking figures.
Online tracking firm Alexa noted that "Netlog.com is ranked #291 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings."
In the UAE, Netlog's 700,000 member activities pushed the social portal into the 37th most popular online destination, just behind The Pirate Bay website. Netlog was ranked 40th most popular site Saudi Arabia.
In the last three months, Alexa said that 1,907 sites linked to Netlog, another strong indicator of demand for the social online portal.
Bozorgzadeh said the Middle East community of Netlog is only a small part of the worldwide reach of global Netlog which has 83 million members.
Part of Netlog's success, he said, is that the company has helped online users around the world create their own mother-tongue portal communities in 34 languages to stay in touch, play games and share pictures and commentary.
