Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Review of ICT Landscape in Qatar



ICT QATAR is working with telecommunications operators and others to accomplish faster, more secure networks, ramping up connectivity, and ultimately boosting overall ICT access and usage among households and individuals, businesses, government agencies, and other important sectors in Qatar.

The report Qatar’s ICT Landscape 2013:Households and Individuals, published by ICT Qatar recently,  highlights many encouraging developments in the country’s ongoing quest to build a competitive knowledge-based economy that will benefit all its people. From climbing mobile, Internet, broadband, mobile broadband, smartphone, and tablet computer penetration rates and the rise of multiple device ownership to citizens’ increasingly sophisticated everyday online habits and the country’s highly connected youth population, it’s clear that technology is an increasingly integral part of life for people in Qatar.

Looking at the most recent data from 2012, several clear trends emerge: People in Qatar Are More Connected Than Ever Before. Today, on average, a household in Qatar owns three mobile phones, two computers, and one smartphone, and people are using these technologies to access the Internet in ever-greater numbers. In fact, between 2008 and 2012, computer penetration among individuals more than doubled, while Internet use soared to 69.3 percent, up from 38 percent, over the same four-year period. The progress is even more impressive among mainstream individuals, with a rise in computer penetration to 89 percent and continued growth across all other basic ICT infrastructure areas, including mobile phones, now at a near-universal 99.5 percent. Internet penetration for this group also increased significantly to 88 percent—a rate that is among the best in the Arab region, on par with ICT-advanced countries like South Korea and the UK, and just a step behind leaders such as Norway and Sweden, which have 93 percent and 90 percent Internet penetration, respectively.