A latest research has brought forward the fact that the UAE has the maximum proportion of female internet users in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and the second highest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The research, carried out by Effective Measure, an online audience measurement company, has specified that over 40% of the UAE's internet users are female, a percentage exceeded in the MENA region only by Morocco, where 46.6 percent of internet users are females.

Brendon Ogilvy, Effective Measure's regional director for MENA said: "That's why females are a highly sought-after community online, because there are fewer of them, and sites that attract more of them have more value. Women internet users are much more likely to be the decision maker in the household for consumer goods, travel and accommodation. They also spend more time than men reading an internet page, suggesting they engage more than men with what they read online." However, it should be noted that where money is considered, men tend to spend more online than women.

While 45% of the men surveyed by the study agreed that they sometimes bought products with their credit cards, only 36 percent of female respondents said they did the same.

Nearly 68,721 people were polled by the study over the past three months in the MENA region.