Apple’s iPhone 5 Is UAE’s Most Popular Smartphone – TRA

Apple’s iPhone 5 emerged as the most popular smartphone in the UAE in the third quarter of the year, with 2.8 per cent of the total marketshare.

The device replaced Samsung Galaxy S3, which was pushed to the second position with a 2.5 per cent share, according to data released by the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).

According to the report, 46 per cent of handsets registered on the UAE’s networks between July 1 and September 30 were smartphones.

In terms of models, iPhone 4S came third with a 2.3 per cent marketshare followed by iPhone 4 and BlackBerry 9900 (both 1.8 per cent), Samsung S4 (1.6 per cent), Galaxy S Duos (1.2 per cent), BlackBerry Bold 9790 (1.1 per cent) and BlackBerry Bold 9780 with one per cent.

Overall, the report found that 56.2 per cent of the handsets in the UAE were manufactured by Nokia in Q3, down slightly from 56.4 per cent in Q2 2013.

Nokia was followed by Samsung with a 16.4 per cent marketshare, up from 13.8 per cent in Q2, BlackBerry – 10.2 per cent, down from 10.7 per cent in Q2 and Apple – 7.8 per cent, higher than 7.4 per cent last quarter.

In terms of specific handset models, the Nokia 101/1010 (4.1 per cent) was the most popular mobile handset in Q3, beating the Nokia 1280/1282 (3.7 per cent) to the second spot.

The report, which also tracked internet trends, found that in the third quarter, UAE users visited applications websites a total of 1.5 billion times.

Apple iTunes was the most commonly visited apps website, followed by Nokia OVI, Samsung Apps, Blackberry App World and Android Applications.

UAE users also made 13.7 billion visits to social networking websites, with visits to Facebook accounting for 91 per cent of the total, followed by Twitter with eight per cent.

The UAE ranks highest in the world in terms of smartphone penetration with 73.8 per cent of consumers owning smartphones. The overall mobile penetration rate in the country stands at 181 per cent.

The rising demand for smartphones has led to increased competition among manufacturers, with new Chinese players such as Lenovo also entering the saturated market in 2013.