Prayers at Al Rahim Mosque in Dubai during Ramadan. More are using social media to share inspiration. Jaime Puebla / The National
Prayers at Al Rahim Mosque in Dubai during Ramadan. More are using social media to share inspiration. Jaime Puebla / The National

Technology

Muslims turning to social media to share Ramadan experiences

The 'volume of conversation' around Ramadan is increasing every year, with more than 215 million tweets last year, an increase from about 74 million in 2013.

Emmanuel Samoglou

April 15, 2015

DUBAI // Muslims are increasingly turning to social media to share their experiences during Ramadan, a regional executive for Twitter has said, allowing insight into how the holy month shapes their lives and allows them to connect with others of their faith.

The “volume of conversation” around Ramadan is increasing every year, with more than 215 million tweets last year, an increase from about 74 million in 2013, Parminder Singh said during the Festival of Media in Dubai on Wednesday.

The volume of online messages spikes around sunrise, near the time of Suhoor and Fajr prayers, with tweets about daily routines, shopping, health, television and sport driving online conversation during Ramadan, said Mr Singh, who is managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, South East Asia and India.

The platform is used in the UAE to post and retweet festive content and greetings for Ramadan, to connect with friends, family and other Muslims from around the world, and to keep track of important daily events such as Iftar, said Mr Singh.

“Any offline stimulus leads to an emotional fulfilment once people go online and talk about it,” he said.

“The same thing is happening with Ramadan. People are undergoing an experience that’s profound, that’s very deep, and some emotional fulfilment is happening online when they tweet about it and they talk about it with their friends.”

The data showed trends on when people were tweeting, and about what subjects.

For example, tweets about sports would taper off immediately after the beginning of Ramadan and remain at low levels until the end of fasting season. While the main tweet topics related to common activities that continue throughout the year, Mr Singh said changes in things like eating habits alter context.

“The themes and what people do on a day-to-day basis don’t change, but the way they do it [does],” he said.

Mr Singh said 42 per cent of users expected their Twitter usage to increase during Ramadan. He said Twitter users in the UAE were also going online to find Ramadan shopping deals.

esamoglou@thenational.ae

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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