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Qatar’s ICT Landscape 2014: Households and Individuals, a research report released yesterday by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, clearly show that people across the education spectrum access social networking, VoIP and other basic Internet services. |
Social networking was, in fact, used by almost 93% of respondents who are active online.
The research shows that as education levels increase, there is a shift toward using advanced online services, with 22% of respondents whose education is above the secondary level using e-commerce in the past 12 months, compared with just 6.2% of those with secondary education or less.
Improvement in education level corresponds to a reduction in concerns about online security and threats, the report revealed.
The study, consisted of both qualitative and quantitative research, including 11 focus groups, in-depth interviews and a survey of 2,207 residents across genders, ages, nationalities and municipalities.
Overall, 60% of Qataris are satisfied with their mobile phone service. Satisfaction rates for both fixed broadband and mobile phone services have increased over time and across all segments and nationalities. “Customer support” and “ease of changes to account on your own” are the areas of least satisfaction among residents of Qatar, according to the survey.
For the purpose of the households and individuals survey, six areas of interest were identified for more in-depth study: social networking, e-commerce, e-government, online postal services offered by national provider Q-Post, online privacy and security, and new online services.
The survey results showed that 87% of Internet users access social networking at least once a month in Qatar, an increase over prior years.
Penetration levels in advanced services such as online banking and e-commerce are low, especially among non-Westerners, with 44% of those who did not use such services in the past year, reporting that they are concerned about the security of online portals, 26% worried about having “no control” and 31% believing the process is too technical.
In terms of e-government, the findings show that 55% of the overall population is aware of online services, although only 16% used them in the past year. Qualitative findings suggest that interaction with the government could be handled more effectively face-to-face rather than online.
As much as 88% of the population has not used Q-Post services in the past year. Of those who are not aware of Q-Post online services, nearly half report that they are not interested in knowing more about them, as they are happy using global private courier services such as DHL and Aramex.
There is a general lack of awareness and willingness to learn about Q-Post’s online services. Providing relevant and value-added services that benefit consumers will encourage people in Qatar to move toward the use of Q-Post’s online offerings.
While 38% of Internet users are concerned about the lack of privacy online, 30% are concerned about using services such as online banking.
A growing interest in all mobile-based services emerged from the survey — 72% of young Qataris reported an interest in mobile wallet and 69% are interested in money transfer via mobile phone, providing an opportunity for the development of additional advanced online services.
In addition, the households and individuals study identified lack of advanced ICT skills and knowledge among the population. The digital literacy and IT skills programmes that are currently being implemented by the ministry should go a long way toward mitigating this problem, the
report added.
