YOUGotaGift reported cross-border digital gifting into the UAE from 140 countries and into Saudi Arabia from 76 in a July 3, 2023 analysis. The company described its evidence as internal transactional data for the preceding 12 months, without publishing exact start and end dates, order totals or transaction values. The result measures the breadth of origins observed on its own platform. [1]
A wider spread of origins does not establish a larger sales market
The two destination counts are directly comparable as the company’s reported measure of geographic reach. They do not show how often people sent gifts, how much they spent or how many individual customers participated. An origin represented by a single transaction and one represented by many transactions each contribute one country to this measure; the publication does not disclose that distribution. [1]
Origin countries observed in YOUGotaGift’s cross-border gifting
Countries sending digital gifts toward each destination in the company’s stated preceding 12 months, reported July 3, 2023.
origin countries
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
Source
Company platform data only. Exact period endpoints, transaction totals and origin-identification method were not published. Origin sets may overlap, so the two values must not be added to obtain distinct worldwide origins. Counts are not sales, customers or market shares.
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| Category | Reported origin-country count |
|---|---|
| UAE destination | 140 origin countries |
| Saudi Arabia destination | 76 origin countries |
The leading origin countries for UAE-bound gifting were the UK, United States, Saudi Arabia and India. For Saudi Arabia, the company named the UAE, Kuwait, United States and India. It did not publish their shares or a complete origin-country table, so those lists describe leading routes without quantifying how concentrated the business was. [1]
Birthdays and thank-you gifts were the leading personal occasions in both destinations. Seasonal patterns differed: Christmas and year-end gifting led in the UAE, while Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha led in Saudi Arabia. Hypermarkets and online stores were leading categories in both markets; the company also highlighted malls and gaming in the UAE and fashion in Saudi Arabia. These are qualitative rankings in the published analysis, without accompanying order counts or percentages. [1]
YOUGotaGift identified its HappyYOU multi-brand card as the preferred option and described more than 700 brands across the region at that time. That regional catalogue figure does not establish how many brands accepted each country’s card or the proportion of buyers choosing it. A later company press release carried by The Gift Club repeats the findings, rather than supplying an independent transaction study. [1] [S02]
The useful commercial finding is that the platform was already connecting senders from many countries to recipients in two Gulf markets. The published snapshot does not include an earlier matched series, so it cannot establish a numerical growth rate or the size of the wider cross-border gifting market. The evidence remains a historical observation from one operator’s 2023 publication. [1]
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Suzie Elis
Suzie Elis covers gift card products, digital gifting and distribution for Gift Card News.