Intelligent Insights is a data platform that has been conceived to address a very clear gap in the Middle East market – lack of consumer and retail market size data.

Retailers, mall developers, education service providers, healthcare institutions, banks and any organization that is in a consumer facing industry, spend substantial amounts of money to get such data at one point in time, and they have to wait for several weeks to get that estimate.

Intelligent Insights is a subscription based, do-it-yourself platform that offers such data in an accurate, instant, detailed and affordable fashion.

We currently offer Dubai and Riyadh on our platform and also have data on Doha, Jeddah and Bahrain in our back end.

See categories covered click here.

1. Demographic Data – population, income, nationality distribution for each zone in each city covered. We are adding more metrics such as age distribution, media preferences, etc. as we write this.

EXAMPLE I: Income level of various nationality groups in a city 

EXAMPLE II: Nationality distribution in various zones in a city 

EXAMPLE III: Population by nationality and zone distribution in various zones in a city 

2. Market Sizes – spend by residents on key retail categories by zone, nationality, month. Categories are very detailed – see list click here 

EXAMPLE I: Total spend on Color Cosmetics by Westerners living in Dubai Marina or Al Nakheel (Riyadh) in Apr’23

EXAMPLE II: Total spend on Women’s Jeans by all South Asians living in Dubai in an entire year 

EXAMPLE III: Total spend on Fine Dining by UAE Nationals living in Khawaneej in Q1 2023

3. Catchments Analysis – Pre-defined catchments analysis for key malls in cities covered. You get maps, market size, demographic details of catchments

EXAMPLE: Catchments of Mall of the Emirates, or Riyadh Avenue Mall and market size of chosen category in those catchments.

4. Tourist Data – Tourist related statistics on volume, motive, retail spend; hotel supply related data.

Market sizes are calculated and triangulated using back tested methods that assure reasonable levels of accuracy.

Information is gathered from various trade associations, government bodies, retailers, end consumers and heuristic data analysis techniques are applied to generate knowledge and insights.

Explaining the process requires a two-way conversation – we are happy to jump on a call to discuss.

Market size is defined as total sales of a given category in the city in a given time frame, online or offline. Any purchases that are made outside of the city are not counted.

For example, a resident of Dubai, spending money on Clothes in Europe (or elsewhere) is not counted. 

Data is available by zone, by nationality at monthly level for residents. For tourists, we publish our estimates on volume of tourists and value of spend on retail, F&B and entertainment based on periodic reports from government departments, Tourism Satellite Accounts, and other bodies such as World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). 

The idea is to develop an understanding of total market size in the city in context. There are certain limitations in that tourist data is not available as granularly and as frequently. 

That said, even for a tourism oriented city like Dubai, retail market size for tourists is no more than ~25-30% of the total market size. For other cities, this is much lower. 

As such, what is critical to understand is retail market size attributable to residents of a city, at a zonal level. 

Levels of accuracy depends upon what data are you viewing and at what level of granularity.

For example, if you are looking at population of a particular zone published by the government (and gathered by Intelligent Insights as part of its research), then that will be 100% accurate.

If you are looking at catchments of a mall, then there will be certain judgement applied to it which may differ from yours (we give you the flexibility to change the catchments).

If you are looking at market sizes, then, the more granular you go, the higher the margin of error. For example, market size for a number of zones covering all nationalities will be fairly accurate, but market size for one nationality in one zone may have a higher margin of error.

At the end, all market size estimates made by anybody are, in effect, estimates. All data analysis, financial modeling, risk analytics, growth strategies, etc. work on such estimates.

Multiple channels are used to gather information which then is synthesized, consolidated, analyzed and uploaded on to the portal. Channels range from desk research, field research, expert inputs, research reports, etc.

Our data can be used for a variety of purposes. Most common use cases are –

1. Understanding the demographic profile of a community or a city
2. Analyzing how your brand is performing compared to overall market (or just the catchments of your location) on a monthly / quarterly / annual basis
3. Comparing performance of your brand across locations
4. Assessing a new location via catchments analysis or demographic profile
5. Understanding tourist statistics

We are providing you with a way to assess your performance, or understand potential before venturing into a new market / location.

You can contact us, we can discuss specific grievances and problem solve.

We are very open to enhancing the quality of data. If you provide evidence of the incorrectness, then we will be more than happy to take corrective action.

However, note that your sales going down while our numbers suggesting that market size has grown does not mean our data is incorrect.

Correct. We do not aspire to publish overall market sizes. We are categories specific – at a very detailed level (by detailed categories (for e.g., not just clothes, but 20+ categories within clothes), zone, by nationality, by month).

Nationality groups have been carefully designed based on their consumption behavior. It is neither possible, nor prudent to further drill down at an individual nationality level as that would imply cutting the data too thin, without any material addition to insights.

Above said, if you are a paid subscriber, then we can give you our opinion on this.

Our nationality distributions are by ethnicity. So, an Arab national having a Western passport would be counted as Arab / South Asian.

We only have data from 2023.

We are continuously adding new cities. As we add, they will reflect on our portal.

No. We do not provide access to raw data.

No. We are not in the business of selling leads or connecting with industry incumbents or experts.

No. That is not part of our business model.