The Middle East is witnessing an accelerated shift to smartphones. An increasing number of regional holiday-goers are depending on their smartphone to plan their trips this summer with 40 per cent of GCC travellers using the internet as their first stop.

Honor, the leading smartphone e-brand in the region, predicts that holidays-goers in the summer will spend up to a staggering 26 hours a week on their smartphone. Where once the camera was the most important travel accessory, nine in 10 people in the UAE now believe their smartphone is more essential, demonstrating how important a consumer’s device is as part of their lifestyle.

Chris Sun Baigong, vice president Huawei honor Middle East CBG, said: “The fact that holiday-makers will spend up to half of their week on their smartphones even surprised us. What doesn’t surprise us however, is how important smartphones are as an extension of people’s lifestyles.”

Smartphone penetration among millennials in the GCC is in the high nineties and mobile usage is almost at 100 per cent, according to recent study by thinkwithgoogle.

Research from Huawei honor, suggests that there is a significant difference in smartphone behaviour between UAE and Saudi Arabian holiday-makers. It highlighted that people in Saudi mostly use their smartphones for gaming and making calls when on holiday, however taking photos was still the number one in terms of usage.

Sunbaigong added: “At Huawei honor, everything we do is for the benefit of the end user. Whether it is specs, camera or appearance, we take note of what they actually want and use on a daily basis. This is why this summer we have partnered with cleartrip to giveaway all honor users’ vouchers worth up to Dh100 ($27.2) just by registering on store.hihonor.com/ae/ website. We know how important the smartphone camera is to our end-users, which is why our devices are geared towards taking great shots on the go – meaning there is literally no excuse for a bad photo. In fact, our upcoming smartphone launch will really showcase this in abundance so watch this space.” -TradeArabia News Service