The digital realm’s role in Ramadan celebrations just keeps on expanding

DUBAI: Ramadan is a time for introspection, spirituality and family bonding. Many Muslims change their daily habits during the holy month, not only by fasting from dawn to dusk but also by making an effort to be more charitable and spend more time in prayer.

This change in habits increasingly transcends the real world and extends to the virtual, with many people spending more time online as they search for seasonal shopping deals, along with entertaining and spiritual content.

Researchers have found the total time users across the region spend online significantly increases during Ramadan, scrolling, searching and browsing more than they do at any other time of the year.

“According to a recent study, six out of 10 consumers agree that their mobile phone usage increases during Ramadan,” George Maktabi, the CEO of media and technology company Webedia Group MENA, told Arab News.

About 50 percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia said they spend one to three hours on their smartphones each day during Ramadan, according to a survey by advertising platform AdColony and research company GlobalWebIndex.

“The MENA (Middle East and North Africa region), and specifically Saudi Arabia, have one of the highest average (numbers of) paying users in the world, and Ramadan has been known to spike up revenue and daily active users,” Maktabi added.

About 74 percent of Muslims in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon said they would be using their smartphones the same amount as or more than usual during Ramadan this year, according to a 2022 study by Statista.

It is perhaps no surprise that smartphone usage during Ramadan has been increasing steadily in recent times but it is worth examining exactly what people use their smartphones for during the month.

“Last year, noticeable spikes in searches for fashion and beauty (especially modest makeup), food (especially quick recipes, desserts and small kitchen appliances), online deals, gifting, and spirituality were recorded on our publications during Ramadan,” said Maktabi.

In Saudi Arabia, he added, there was a sharp increase in the number of people interested in content that can teach them something new.

Close to 90 percent of users surveyed in the UAE and 86 percent in the Kingdom used social media both to learn new things and to send greetings during Ramadan, while 84 percent in in Saudi Arabia and 77 percent in the Emirates also watched online videos, either to learn how to do something or for entertainment, according to a Statista study.

People find not only a sense of connection and sources of entertainment in the virtual world during the holy month, but also spirituality. Reading the Qur’an before iftar is a popular activity, with significant levels of participation in the activity among both men (68 percent) and women (46 percent), according to Statista. Its study also found that 48 percent of people in Saudi Arabia bought religious items before Ramadan.

In fact, according to a 2022 report by Google, prayer queries hit at an all-time high for the year in the two weeks before Ramadan, and the greatest number of downloads of religious apps took place during the first week of the month.

“The holy month’s central themes of spirituality, giving and kindness can also be detected through searches,” said Maktabi.

“We saw a 100 percent increase in YouTube search interest for ‘donations’ and ‘charitable giving’ in Saudi Arabia during the four weeks of Ramadan in 2021 versus all other months of the year.”

Such trends are especially evident on social media platforms. The biggest-trending Instagram reels and TikTok audios at this time of year are usually ones with Islamic themes, according to Sohaib Mazhar, a founding partner of Brand Agency and a social media specialist with BMB Group.

“There are remixes, or slowed reverbs, in TikTok style of nasheeds or qawalis (types of music), which many brands also opt to use for their content for Ramadan,” he said.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social media app in recent times, is unsurprisingly among the most popular platforms for messages and celebrations during the holy month.

Last year, videos posted with the hashtag #Ramadan2022 received 3.9 billion views on the platform, while posts with the hashtags #RamadanPreps and #RamadanHealth garnered 551 million and 439 million video views respectively.

“Other popular categories that literally provided food for thought and sparked user creativity were #WhereToEat, with 371 million video views, and #ModestFashion, with 156 million video views,” Sasha El-Jurdi, TikTok MENA’s head of content programming, told Arab News.

“When it comes to family, we see a lot of content under the hashtag #MyFamily that curates feel-good videos of vlogs with family members celebrating the spirit of Ramadan together.”

Consumption of entertaining content also increases on TikTok during Ramadan, particularly in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, as users turn to the platform for inspiration and ideas on topics such as DIY trends in Ramadan decorations, modest fashion and popular recipes, El-Jurdi added.

For example, 57 percent of TikTok users said they were inspired by content creators to try new household products during Ramadan, and 85 percent spent more time watching cooking videos during the month, according to a TikTok study.

However, TikTok is not the only social media platform to experience a surge in usage during Ramadan. Users in the Middle East also spend close to 58 million more hours than usual on Facebook during the month, a five percent increase, according to Google.

In a pre-Ramadan survey of Twitter users in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt last year, 60 percent of users said that Twitter was their go-to platform for discovering what was happening during the holy month.

Meanwhile, YouTube was the most popular video app in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan 2022, with 18.1 million active users, an increase of 190,000 compared with the previous year.

The increase in online activity was accompanied by a shift in times of use, according to Mazhar.

“There’s a substantial increase in online activity around sahoor time and after midnight, as well as after iftar, while people wait for Isha prayers,” he said.

Online consumer spending during Ramadan was valued at $6.2 billion in 2022, representing a 39 percent increase compared with the previous year, according to Statista. Nearly all consumers in the Kingdom said they research products online before purchase, according to a study carried out by Google and Kantar this year. Google Search is the top option for such research, with 74 percent of Saudi shoppers using it to check product information, while 52 percent use YouTube for the same purpose.

Shopping is one of the major drivers of online activity during Ramadan, studies show. Consumer activity in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan this year was forecast to increase by 44 percent compared with last year, according to a recent study conducted by Toluna, a provider of market research and consumer insight.

“The increase can be seen across all sectors, including entertainment (up by 44 percent from last year), grocery shopping (up by 51 percent), traveling abroad (up by 35 percent), staycation (up by 42 percent), food delivery (up by 39 percent), and beauty treatment (up by 31 percent),” said Maktabi.

Ramadan and the Eid holiday that follows are particular times when shopping is not only about personal wants but also gifting.

The Toluna survey found that the majority of respondents (91 percent) planned to give Eid presents this year, with children (66 percent), parents (56 percent) and friends (37 percent) the primary recipients.

In addition, 46 percent of respondents planned to increase their spending on Eid gifts this year, while 39 percent expressed a desire to make the occasion more special to compensate for the low-key pandemic years, and to do so by treating themselves and their loved ones, according to the same study.

Despite almost half of all respondents noting an increase in prices this year, they were still planning to spend more on gifts, and more than a third said they intended to give gifts to more people this year.

Ramadan and Eid are are a very important time of year for Muslims in the Middle East, and all around the world, and digital channels increasingly offer yet another way of bringing people closer together and to the things they are passionate about.

As Maktabi pointed out, it is notable that the biggest shift in online behavior during Ramadan is not in people’s shopping habits, but their increased engagement with spiritual and religious activities.