The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, has revealed statistics for the second quarter of 2017 on the nation’s most popular mobile phone handsets. Investigating the current state of the market, the report reveals the market share of mobile phones in the UAE by manufacturer and model.

According to the report, during the period 1st April to 30th June, 2017, 81.5 percent of handsets registered on the UAE’s networks were 'smartphones'. In terms of smartphones by model, the iPhone 6 continues to be the most commonly used in the UAE, comprising 3.1 percent of total handsets registered on UAE networks. The report shows that the iPhone 6S was the second most popular with 2.33 percent. The third most commonly used was the iPhone 7, with a share of 2.25 percent. The fourth most commonly used was the iPhone 7plus with a share of 1.77 percent.

The report indicates that during the second quarter of 2017, 34.5 percent of all handsets registered on UAE mobile networks were manufactured by Samsung. Nokia handsets were the second most popular manufacturer with 22.9 percent and Apple the third most popular with a share of 15.5 percent. This was followed by Lenovo with 5.4 percent, and then Huawei with 3.2 percent.

During Q2 2017, the Apple iTunes Store was by far the most visited applications website, followed by Samsung Apps, and finally Android Applications. In terms of social media, UAE smartphone and fixed Internet users made 20.4 billion visits to social networking websites during the period, with Facebook accounting for 90.4 percent of total visits to social networking sites, followed by Twitter with 5.0 percent, then LinkedIn with 4.6 percent.