I agree.What percentage of Arabic speakers do you think will run online businesses designed to attract non Arabic(English) speakers? Deduct that percentage from those that do not speak English and can now access the net in their own language for the first time- quite a lot methinks.:gl:
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Depends if you are asking about Arabic speakers in the UAE ( regarding the .emarat extension) or Arabic speakers worldwide?
I think the UAE (whole country) population is 8.19 million right now but it is increasing quickly.
UAE nationals are the minority and represent around a fifth of the population. The rest of the population are expats from all over, India, Europe, Iran, Russia etc so Arabic domains may not be as important to them.
With such a massive investment in Tourism in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah & RAK I think the number of businesses that will be aiming to attract non Arabic speakers will be pretty high, mainly ones like hotels, flights, holidays, property, jobs etc although they will also be trying to attract arabic visitors as well.
So far the UK has been the main/biggest single source of visitors to UAE I doubt that will remain that way for long, they are already targeting new markets like china, japan cos Britains screwed
Just my random thoughts at the moment, seems like they're not that bothered about .com domains or .ae either, there's loads of really good .ae's left unregistered
...maybe they don't like the Internet as a source of potential customers ?? ....good luck running a tourism destination like that :tri:
Did you buy any .ae's Wot or are you more interested in IDN's? I did come across a post on a forum where it looked like you owned golf.ae at one time, did you and if so did you drop it or sell it ?
Here's a good article from today talking about arabic language on the internet, interesting reading Wot
Microsoft and Google eye Arabic web growth potential
"Arabic content is less than 1 percent of world totals though speakers constituting 5 percent of the global population."
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/586735-microsoft-and-google-eye-arabic-web-growth-potential
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