Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
Etisalat users continue to experience the fastest overall download speeds in UAE. With an average download speed of 48 Mbps, our Etisalat users experienced speeds that were 14.4 Mbps (42.9%) faster than those seen by our users on du (33.6 Mbps). Since our our last report, Etisalat’s Download Speed Experience score has increased by 2.4 Mbps and du’s score has risen by 1.4 Mbps. As a result, Etisalat has extended its lead over du by 1 Mbps.
Etisalat also beats du in Upload Speed Experience, with our users on its network observing an average upload speed of 11.9 Mbps — 33.8% faster than those seen by our du users. However, our du users saw a greater improvement of 2.2 Mbps in Upload Speed Experience than the 0.9 Mbps increase seen by Etisalat users. As a result, Etisalat’s lead on this measure had shrunk by 1.4 Mbps, from 4.4 Mbps (65.4%) to 3 Mbps (33.8%). Upload speeds are becoming an increasingly important aspect of user experience because smartphone users now engage more on social media apps — creating and sharing high-resolution images and videos — and are moving away from content consumption to content creation.
Etisalat wins the Games Experience award with a score of 64.3 points on a 100-point scale. However, the operator’s lead has more than halved since our last report, from 11.3 points down to 5.5 points. This change was caused by a 4.7 points improvement in du’s score and a one-point decline in Etisalat’s score since last time. Opensignal’s Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network and analyzes how this is affected by mobile network conditions, including latency, packet loss and jitter. In addition, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions.
Etisalat once again leads in the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — on mobile apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. The operator holds onto the Voice App Experience award with a score of 77.7 points, while du is close behind with 73.5 points (out of 100). However, it was our du users who saw an improvement of 2.7 points, while Etisalat’s score dipped slightly by 0.6 points. These changes were not big enough to affect users’ Voice Experience ratings; Etisalat and du’s scores continue to rate as Acceptable and Poor, respectively.
Etisalat remains top for Video Experience in the UAE. The operator has won the Video Experience award for the sixth time in a row since our first report in May 2019, and this time with a score of 71.3 points (on a 100-point scale) which is 2.6 points greater than du’s score (68.6 points). Our users on both Emirati networks continue to enjoy a Very Good Video Experience. This means users generally saw fast loading times and only occasional stalling but the experience might have been somewhat inconsistent across users and/or video providers/resolutions.
Etisalat once again claims our 4G Availability award, as our Etisalat users spent the highest proportion of time with a 4G or better connection. Users on both national networks saw 4G Availability above 90% on average. Etisalat also wins a close run race for the 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 9.7 points (on a scale of 0-10) against du’s score of 9.3 points. Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
Etisalat remains the operator to beat when it comes to mobile experience in the UAE. Once again, the operator has won all seven Opensignal awards outright. While the awards table remains unchanged since our last report, a lot has happened when we look at the underlying scores — du has been closing the gap with Etisalat on Games Experience, Voice App Experience, and Upload Speed Experience. Our users on du’s network have seen major improvements across several metrics, including Games Experience, Voice App Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability. At the same time, our Etisalat users saw the greatest improvement in Download Speed Experience.
For this report, we include the overall experience for all smartphone users, but we also publish supporting metrics for 5G users' experience. The difference is that these 5G users results reflect the overall experience across all mobile technologies — 3G, 4G and 5G — of 5G users alone, while the overall results are the average scores across all smartphone users, whether or not they have 5G.
We recently published our first 5G Experience report in the United Arab Emirates, which assesses the mobile experience of our 5G users in the UAE when they had active 5G connections.
| Mobile Experience Awards United Arab Emirates | ||
|---|---|---|
November 2021,
United Arab Emirates Report
|
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
Video Experience
| ||
Games Experience
| ||
Voice App Experience
| ||
Download Speed Experience
| ||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||
4G Availability
| ||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
November 2021,
United Arab Emirates
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Games Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
4G Availability
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 76.5 (± 1.67) | 76.4 (± 1.27) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
d
du
|
76 (± 1.67) |
|
E
Etisalat
|
76 (± 1.27) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 64.8 (± 2.47) | 72.4 (± 2.22) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
d
du
|
65 (± 2.47) |
|
E
Etisalat
|
72 (± 2.22) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 77.4 (± 1.14) | 80.1 (± 0.93) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
d
du
|
77 (± 1.14) |
|
E
Etisalat
|
80 (± 0.93) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 213.3 (± 15.46) | 210.1 (± 12.82) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
d
du
|
213 (± 15.46) |
|
E
Etisalat
|
210 (± 12.82) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 19.3 (± 1.58) | 22.0 (± 1.29) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
d
du
|
19 (± 1.58) |
|
E
Etisalat
|
22 (± 1.29) |
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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