UAE Business: Online spending rises 39pc as streaming services take over – Gulf Digital News

UAE Business: Online spending rises 39pc as streaming services take over – Gulf Digital News

Online consumer spending increased 39% year on year to hit $6.2 billion this year during Ramadan, research shows.

A recent content market webinar hosted by the Dubai International Content Market has shown that constant change is nothing new in the media environment as it has long experienced changes in consumption, target audience and viewership in general.

Ramadan, however, completely reconstructs the typical viewer behaviour with regard to material intake as it recorded a significant impact on how current media forms evolved and developed, making it more challenging for content enthusiasts to predict how consumers will behave over the upcoming months of Ramadan.

Viewership rises

Commenting on the increase of viewership during the holy month, Peter Mrkic, Chief Commercial Officer at Intigral shared: “Jawwy TV’s overall performance was phenomenal in Ramadan this year as we recorded a significant growth in the number of subscribers compared to previous years along with double digit growth in the number of active viewers and overall viewership hours. Our data shows that live TV consumption would peak around Iftar time between 6 pm and 8 pm, whereas VoD content was more frequently streamed between midnight and Sohour time. Accounting for the majority of total viewership time, our linear content resonated