• Eng. Majed Sultan al-Mesmar: "The report indicates the level of digital maturity and reflects the comprehensive and integrated digital environment in the UAE".

UAE 10 August 2023

The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority ("TDRA") issued the "Digital UAE - Factsheet" report, which highlights features of digital life, and performance indicators of the UAE's digital transformation process. The report included a set of facts and figures that show the breadth of the digital map, in line with TDRA's digital transformation strategy, the nature of life in the UAE community in all its public and private segments, and individuals.

The report showed that active Internet users make up 99% of the total population in the UAE, the highest percentage globally. Internet uses are diverse, ranging from social networking, work, and searching for information to learning, entertainment, and shopping. Download speeds on smartphones, according to the report, reached 161.15 Mbit/s, up by more than 2.3% yearly, while fixed internet download speeds reached 207.41 Mbit/s, with a marked increase in rate by 80.1%, which is very high as compared to previous years.

Commenting on the report, H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan al-Mesmar, TDRA's Director-General, said: "The report reflects the digital landscape in the UAE overall and in particular the high level of adopting digital solutions whether in everyday life or government/public services. If anything, this shows the digital maturity level of users and service providers alike, making the UAE a digital environment conducive to leapfrogging towards more excellence." 

Mr. al-Mesmar added: "We are forging ahead according to Vision "We the UAE 2031" and the directives of our wise leadership to keep digital transformation as an indispensable choice and an economic necessity in light of rapid changes in the world. In this context, we stress that our successes in all initiatives result from a collective effort of all government entities that have operated and continue to operate under the principle of partnership and "one national team. So we are confident that the reports will show continued progress in all relevant tracks." 

The report sheds light on the performance of the Unified Digital Platform of the UAE government (U.ae), the government's digital presence interface, and the go-to destination for all public information and services delivered by governmental entities. As per the report, there were 19M visitors to U.ae, with a record of 30M visits through 2022. Connected to which are 221 governmental entities providing 2,630 digital services. At the same time, the happiness index of visitors to U.ae was about 90%, reflecting the success of the portal's role as a leading digital interface locally and globally. 

The Unified Digital Platform of the UAE government (U.ae) witnessed an important development this year; it was enhanced with a search feature supported by generative artificial intelligence. This led to a quantum leap in the speed, accuracy and exclusivity of search results. As a result, in the first month since the search feature was launched, the portal witnessed 60,000 searches, and that the results were found to be exceptional with a satisfaction rate of 98.5%.

An essential update on U.ae is introducing a search feature powered by generative A.I., which increased the accuracy and speed of search hits returned to customers. 

On the other hand, the digital identity app (UAE PASS) has achieved remarkable progress and presence in the digital arena, with a number of users reaching 5 million registered users. According to the report, UAE PASS included nearly 15,000 electronic services. 

The UAE’s top-level domain name ‘.ae’ also showed an increase in adoption, as the number of websites registered in the UAE domain reached 300,000.

In 2022 alone, more than 46,000 domains were registered, showing an increase of 20% over the previous year. In this context, the report included figures on the "Name Idea" service launched by TDRA. The services uses generative artificial intelligence algorithms to choose suitable domain names for commercial activities. The report showed an increased demand for this service by 65% in May, one month after the launch of the service.

The national domain (.ae) has achieved a new milestone, as the number of registrants was upwards of 300,000 websites, while the rate increase in domain registrations was about 20% in 2022. The report also highlighted the recently developed "Name Ideas" feature that uses generative A.I. to help choose a suitable domain name for a business. 

Regarding social media, the report counted up to 10 million active accounts in the UAE, where the percentage of accounts was 105.5% compared to the population and 106.6% compared to the number of internet users—time spent on social media averaged 2:20 hrs. daily. The total number of app downloads reached 569 million, accompanied by an annual increase of 16.4%, bringing the value of spending on app purchases to 1.587 billion dirhams, a rise of 25.3% of the volume of the expenditure on apps.

To view the report click here.