The TikTok Effect: Enabling the UAE’s Dynamic Digital Economy

Since launching in the UAE, TikTok has moved well beyond its origins as a short-form video app to become part of the country’s everyday digital economy, a place where people learn, build businesses, and connect as much as they watch. Today, 65% of UAE users say they use the platform for reasons other than entertainment, from picking up new skills and discovering products to marketing and running their businesses. 

That evolution aligns closely with the UAE’s national direction. The ambitions set out in We the UAE 2031 and UAE Centennial 2071, which include doubling GDP, growing the SMB base to one million, and building a diversified, innovation-led economy, increasingly rely on digital platforms as economic and social infrastructure. By lowering the barriers to starting a business, speeding up digital adoption, and giving local creativity a wider audience, TikTok has become one of the platforms helping advance those goals. This report examines the contribution across three areas. 

Economic enablement and SMB competitiveness 

Small and medium businesses sit at the centre of the UAE’s diversification agenda, and TikTok has become a practical entry point for them into the digital economy, with creative, low-cost formats that make it easy to launch a campaign and reach a large audience without a heavy budget or complex setup. 

• Over 70,000 UAE SMBs actively advertise on TikTok, and Redseer estimates the platform enabled more than 10,000 of them to start their business in the first place. 

• An estimated 3,500 women and 1,400 Emiratis started businesses because of TikTok, broadening who participates in the digital economy. 

• SMB activity on TikTok contributed AED 1.1 Bn in gross value added and supported 7,000 jobs across the UAE economy in 2024. 

Creative economy and sector diversification 

As the UAE scales its creative economy, creators have become a central layer shaping discovery, trust, and demand, and TikTok plays a direct role in helping them start out, build audiences, and earn. 

• One in four creators names TikTok as the main reason they began creating content. 

• TikTok LIVE enabled more than 3 million creators to go live in the UAE, with around three-quarters earning income through their streams. 

• The platform also supports priority sectors such as tourism: Redseer estimates TikTok shapes around 10% of tourist spending. 

Human development, social cohesion, and digital wellbeing 

Beyond its economic footprint, TikTok contributes to the quality-of-life and human-capital goals at the heart of the UAE’s agenda, in a society home to more than 200 nationalities. 

• Over 75% of users report building professional or personal skills through the platform. 

• TikTok supports cultural expression and connection across a diverse community, backed by trust and safety systems and local partnerships. 

• Using a willingness-to-accept methodology, Redseer estimates TikTok generates around AED 2 Bn a year in consumer benefit that GDP does not capture. 

What’s inside the report 

• Full economic modelling of TikTok’s contribution to GDP-equivalent value and jobs. 

• Survey research across SMBs, creators, and users in the UAE. 

• Case studies, from FIX Dessert Chocolatier’s viral “Dubai chocolate” moment to Emirati- and women-led ventures. 

What the findings mean for policymakers shaping the next phase of the UAE’s digital economy.