Mobile and social media use in Morocco
The crash of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram for more than six hours left the world's population without access to some of the world's most used social networks, bringing to light the dependence of more and more people on internet interaction. Worldwide, there are more than five billion internet users, of which more than four billion are social network users. These figures are growing every year, and in Morocco alone there are already 22 million registered users on social networks, a figure that is almost 10 per cent higher than last year's figure.
The Alawi kingdom has almost 28 million people with access to the Internet, almost 75% of the total population. Compared to last year, there are 2.3 million more users, a further sign of the unstoppable advance of the Internet worldwide. To this must be added the use of social networks, which is becoming increasingly common and is even generating cases of addiction, especially among young people. In Morocco, 60% of the population is active on social networks, something that was boosted with the arrival of the pandemic. Since then, the number of users has increased by 4 million, a 22.2% increase.
The differentiating factor that has been a turning point in the use of both the Internet and social networks has been the advent of the smartphone. The vast majority of network traffic is via mobile phones, well ahead of desktops, laptops and tablets. In the UK, 98.1% of the population aged 16-64 have a smartphone, far higher than those who own computers - almost 28% - or tablets - just under 13%. In addition, the report published by Datareportal shows that more than 92% use their smartphone to connect to social networks.
Within the mobile phone market, there is a clear preference for the Android operating system over iOS in Moroccan society. Whether it is because of taste or because of the high price of the devices from the company headed by Tim Cook, the Cupertino company has to make do with 26.4% of the market share, while Android accounts for 73%. It is also striking that up to 32.2% of mobile usage in Morocco is for online shopping, a figure that has increased exponentially compared to studies published in previous years.
Morocco represents a very succulent market for social media advertisers. If we focus on the month of December - the most fruitful month for influencers and, consequently, the most expensive for brands looking to promote themselves - more than 94% of all social media users were online, accumulating an average of two and a half hours of consumption per person. The most surprising fact is that, according to the data in this report, each person who used social networks during the last month of last year has almost 6 accounts on average.
The networks preferred by the Moroccan population are not too disruptive. WhatsApp is the preferred messaging application. 7 out of 10 mobile phones have it downloaded, which translates into 73.7%. It is closely followed by the company to which it belongs since February 2014, Facebook, with 70%, and YouTube with 66%. Further behind are Instagram (51.6%), TikTok (37%), Snapchat (26%) and Twitter (22%). The most popular topics among the Moroccan population are film and music.
