- ISO 3166
SA- Main language + region
ar-SA- Currency
- SAR · Saudi Riyal
- Region
- EMEA · MENA · MENAP
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has 36.5M people, and 36.5M of them are online. Arabic is the most widely spoken language at 100%, one of 2 languages CLDR lists here. Arabic is official nationally. A product shipping here defaults to ar-SA.
Market summary
Each figure carries its own world scale, so it reads without a second market beside it.
People online
36.5M
0%world median 81%100%
100% of 36.5M people use the internet, per the World Bank's 2024 figure. Estimated by multiplying CLDR population by that share.
Income per person
$34,537
Higher than 77% of 213 territories
GDP per capita in current US dollars, World Bank Open Data, most recent reported year. A rough guide to spending power, not revenue.
Can pay online
79%
0%world median 71%100%
Adults aged 15 and over holding a bank or mobile-money account, World Bank Global Findex 2024. Below half means a card-only checkout excludes most of the market.
Languages
2
Arabic 100% · Najdi Arabic 3%
Languages CLDR records here with a share of 0.1% or more. 1 of them is official nationally.
English proficiency
404
Very lowVery high
Very low proficiency on the EF EPI 2025 scale. The sample is self-selected online test takers. It never enters any score on this site.
Adult literacy
87%
0%world median 95%100%
Share of adults who can read, as recorded in CLDR territory data. Low literacy shifts a product toward icons, audio, and video before another language.
What people speak
Shares include second languages, so totals can exceed 100%.
Most spoken in Saudi Arabia
share of 36.5M people
- Arabicofficial100%36.5M
- Najdi Arabic3%1.1M
Filled bars are nationally official languages. Bars are scaled to the largest language rather than to 100%.
CLDR records Arabic in 34 territories and 378.6M speakers in total; Saudi Arabia holds 10% of them, and the rest come with the same translation. The Arabic profile maps the whole footprint.
Day-one requirements
What the interface needs for the main language spoken here (ar-SA).
Plural categories
6
Word-forms a translator writes for counted text ("1 item", "5 items"). More than English's two, so counted strings carry extra variants.
Script family
Arabic
Bundle a Noto-class webfont that covers this script. OS defaults vary.
Reading direction
Right-to-left
Use logical CSS properties (padding-inline-start, etc.). Wrap interpolated LTR with <bdi> or FSI/PDI.
Date
٢١ أبريل ٢٠٢٦
Short: ٢١/٤/٢٠٢٦
Time
٦:٣٠ م
Week starts Sun
Currency
١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦ ر.س.
1,234.56 in SAR · Saudi Riyal
The engineering behind the flags: Bidirectional text: why the dollar sign wanders in an RTL string · RTL layouts: what flips and what doesn't · Font fallback: why the OS picks the wrong glyphs for this script · Plural rules: why each category needs its own translation