PHOTO
The gaming industry continues to dominate across digital platforms, with TikTok drawing 3 trillion views from users globally in 2022 who were searching for such content.
The momentum continued in the first half (H1) of 2023, with the company’s #GamingonTikTok hashtag racking up 81 million views from the UAE and Egypt each over this period.
The number more than doubled in Saudi Arabia, where 238 million viewers used the hashtag.
Sub-hashtags such as #MobileGamerNation drew 3.6 billion global views, with 25 million video views for the UAE, 227 million video views for Saudi Arabia and 287 million views for Egypt.
Similarly, #WhatToPlay drew 1.3 billion global views, with 665,000 for UAE, 1.2 million in Saudi Arabia, and 662,000 in Egypt.
According to TikTok’s ‘Marketing Science Global Entertainment Study 2021’, by customer experience and design consultancy Material, 41% of users downloaded a featured game after seeing gaming content on the platform, while 36% made purchases to play.
The gaming industry continues to dominate, with revenues from this sector expected to reach $6 billion by 2027 in this region, according to DMCC’s Future of Trade 2023 report.
The report pegged the UAE and Saudi Arabia as leading the demand in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with strong digital engagement and public investment initiatives.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)
