Mapping Twitter

The total number of active Twitter users and tweet volume in each of the 22 Arab countries was estimated in the month of March 2014 using a Twitter API (application programming interface) specially developed for this research. The methodology used is detailed in Annex 1. Briefly, it consists of randomly sampling a certain number of Twitter users in each country captured across the month of March 2014, and using this sample to extrapolate and estimate the active Twitter population. The volume of tweets and top trends throughout March 2014 were also estimated.

Twitter in the Arab World: A Snapshot

·         The total number of active Twitter users in the Arab world reached 5,797,500 users as of March 2014.
·         The country with the highest number of active Twitter users in the Arab region is Saudi Arabia with 2.4 million users, accounting for over 40% of all active Twitter users in the Arab region.
·         The estimated number of tweets produced by Twitter users in the Arab world in March 2014 was 533,165,900 tweets, an average of 17,198,900 tweets per day.
·         Saudi Arabia, alone, produced 40% of all tweets in the Arab world, while Egypt produced 17% and Kuwait produced 10%.
·         The percentage of female Twitter users in the Arab region – published for the first time in the Arab Social Media Report series - is 36.6%, slightly higher than that of female Facebook users in the region.