How Internet behavior changes during Ramadan

How is Ramadan period changing digital habits?

Digital audience profiling firm Effective Measure has released study results showing that the digital behaviour of many consumers change significantly, particularly in Muslim-dominant markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. This requires businesses to change their approach during this important period, it said.

For the UAE, Malaysia and Indonesia there was increased activity through the night and particularly before sunrise, but not as dramatic as Saudi Arabia.  For example, in Indonesia there is a spike in Unique Browsers (UB’s) between 4am and 5am as people rise to eat before sunrise.

Other key insights from the EM study include:

• In Saudi Arabia, the peak hour for Internet consumption during Ramadan is from 4am to 5am. This is compared to the peak outside Ramadan of 1pm to 2pm.
• In UAE, overnight traffic sees a dramatic increase during Ramadan, with Internet traffic between 2 am and 5 am being twice that of other months.
• In the UAE, during the evening Internet traffic peaks at 8pm, which suggest that people go online straight after Iftar.
• In Indonesia, Internet consumption peaks in the early hours of the morning around 4am suggesting that they get up early before sunrise to access the Internet and eat.
• In Malaysia, Internet peaks in the early hours of the morning around 5am suggesting that they get up a little later than Indonesia to access the Internet and eat before sunrise.
• Of content being consumed during Ramadan, there was no difference to categories outside Ramadan, nor regions that content was being consumed from.

“Ramadan is a key period for digital advertisers. These Effective Measure insights, confirms that Advertisers need to work with their agencies to review their online media strategy during Ramadan to ensure they are marketing to people at the right time, given their different internet consumption behaviour.”

Here are the infographics for the four markets: