Why Snapchat is still popular in the Gulf despite fierce competition

Hussein Freijeh, GM of Snap Inc in the Middle East, revealed the business side of the tool is one of the strongest for the company globally.

The monthly addressable reach in the Middle East has grown to 67 million unique Snapchatters. It comes as the company saw an 11m increase across the world in daily actives in Q3. While Snap recently posted a 52 percent year-on-year increase in revenue to $679m for the third quarter.

Freijeh told Arabian Business: “Our focus was on communicating with people who are close to you, mainly your best friends. When you look at Saudi and the UAE and those markets, those relationships are very valuable, people are young and they love stories. All of those together makes Snapchat an extremely important platform for us when it comes to communicating and being informed.”

Despite the continued popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, particularly Instagram Stories, as well as the emergence of TikTok, Freijeh said Snapchat reaches 60 percent of 13-24-year-olds in the UAE and 90 percent of 13-34-year-olds in Saudi Arabia. While over 85 percent of MENA daily users interact with Lenses every day.

“In the beginning it was millennials and Gen Z and we still have a huge strength in those demographics. But I think in markets like the GCC, specifically in the local community, our audience is covering more of the demographics – locals in the UAE, Saudi nationals, Kuwaitis, Omanis, our coverage is beyond millennials and Gen Z,” he said.

“It’s one of the most important regions for Snapchat, both on the consumer side and on the business side,” he added.

Hussein Freijeh, GM of Snap Inc. in the Middle East

An example of this is the Ounass Mother’s Day campaign through Snapchat earlier in the year, which generated a 5.5 times return on ad investment, with the average basket order generated from the Lens $500.

Meanwhile, OSN, the region’s leading entertainment network, has a partnership with Snapchat to increase awareness about its streaming service, with a series of creative Snap Ads were launched to promote content from HBO and Disney+.

And global fast food giant McDonald’s became the first company in the MENA region to use a Snapchat Lens for a recruitment campaign. Targeting Saudi nationals, the aim of the campaign was to fill 850+ positions across multiple roles – it received in excess of 42,000 responses.

“More than half of our revenue comes from performance advertising,” said Freijeh.