Most visits to your academy from Egypt and Saudi Arabia will come from a phone: phones account for about 64% of web page views in Egypt and 68% in Saudi Arabia. A mobile-first academy is designed for that phone first, not shrunk down from a desktop site. In practice that means lessons that play well on mobile data, Arabic pages that read correctly from right to left, sign-in with one tap, short lessons and progress that follows the student from phone to laptop. Below we show the numbers behind each problem, what to fix on any platform and how HBS LMS handles it.
How many learners in Egypt and Saudi Arabia study on their phones?
Almost everyone is online, and most browsing happens on phones. According to DataReportal's Digital 2026 report for Egypt, 98.2 million people in Egypt were using the internet at the end of 2025, an online penetration of 82.7%. Egypt had 121 million active cellular mobile connections, equal to 102% of the population, and 95.4% of them were broadband (3G, 4G or 5G). In Saudi Arabia, the Digital 2026 report for Saudi Arabia counts 34.4 million internet users, a penetration of 99.0%, and 48.7 million mobile connections, equal to 140% of the population.
Phones are also where the browsing happens. In September 2026, mobile phones accounted for 63.74% of web page views in Egypt against 34.08% for desktops, according to StatCounter. In Saudi Arabia the mobile share was 68.27%, with 30.36% on desktop, according to StatCounter's Saudi data. And Saudi users are heavy users: the Communications, Space and Technology Commission's Saudi Internet Report 2025 found average mobile data consumption of 53 GB per person per month, which it describes as three times the global average, and that 61.3% of users spend seven hours or more online each day.
Students also arrive from phone apps. Many tap a link in an Instagram ad, a TikTok bio or a WhatsApp group, and that link opens on the same phone. If the first page is slow or broken there, the desktop version does not matter.
Why do mobile data costs and video size matter for an online course?
Video is the heaviest thing a student downloads. Ericsson's Mobility Report data shows that, globally, "at the end of 2025, video traffic accounted for around 75 percent of all mobile data traffic". For a sense of scale, Netflix's own help page says streaming uses up to 1 GB per hour in standard definition and up to 3 GB per hour in high definition. By that measure, a 10-hour course watched in HD can use up to 30 GB of a student's bundle, and up to 10 GB in standard definition.
For a student on a limited mobile bundle, when the bundle runs out, the course stops. Practical steps that help on any platform:
- Record and export lessons at a resolution that suits the content. A talking head with slides rarely needs the bitrate of a film.
- Keep lessons short so a student can finish one on the way to work without burning their bundle.
- Put worksheets and summaries in light PDF files beside the lesson, so students can review without replaying the video.
- Avoid autoplaying video on sales pages. Let the visitor choose to press play.
- Test every lesson on a mid-range phone on mobile data, not only on office Wi-Fi.
Why does Arabic text break on so many course platforms?
Many global course platforms were designed for left-to-right languages and added Arabic later as a translation layer. In academies we spoke to, we kept seeing the same symptoms: menus and progress bars that still run left to right, Arabic mixed with English or numbers shown in the wrong order, punctuation jumping to the wrong end of the line, and checkout pages that switch back to English. Each one makes a paid product look unfinished, and on a small phone screen they are hard to miss.
| What the student sees | Usual cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Menu, arrows and progress bar point the wrong way | The layout was built left to right and only the text was translated | Set the page direction to right-to-left and mirror the layout, including icons and arrows |
| Mixed Arabic and English sentences in the wrong order | No direction markup around English words, prices or numbers | Mark the direction of mixed text and test real course titles, not sample text |
| Hard-to-read Arabic on small screens | A Latin font with weak Arabic support, or text set too small | Use a font designed for Arabic at a comfortable size for phones |
| Checkout or emails in English only | Third-party pages not localised | Check every step a student sees, from ad to certificate, in Arabic |
How much does sign-in friction cost you?
Every extra field on a phone is a chance to lose the student. In Baymard Institute's research on US online shoppers, 18% of those who abandoned an order, leaving aside people who were only browsing, did so because the site wanted them to create an account. The same logic applies to a course: a student who taps an ad, picks a course and then has to invent a password and confirm an email may never come back.
What works better on mobile:
- Offer Google sign-in, so students use the account they already have instead of a new password.
- Ask only for what you need at sign-up, such as name, email and phone, and nothing else.
- Let the student pay and enrol in the same flow, with the wallets and cards they already use. We cover payment methods in Egypt in how to collect course payments and enrol students automatically.
- Keep students signed in on their own phone, so they do not need to sign in again every lesson.
How long should a lesson be, and why must progress follow the student?
Short lessons fit how people use phones. In a study of 6.9 million video sessions in four online courses, researchers Guo, Kim and Rubin found that "the median engagement time is at most 6 minutes" regardless of video length, and recommended segmenting videos into chunks shorter than 6 minutes. A long recorded session can usually become several focused lessons with a clear title each. We look at completion in more depth in why students don't finish online courses.
Progress matters because a mobile student studies in pieces: a few minutes on the metro, a lesson at lunch, a quiz on a laptop at night. If the platform does not remember where they stopped, on every device they use, they waste data rewatching and they lose the thread. Saved progress also gives you the drop-off data you need to fix weak lessons.
Do you need a mobile app for your academy?
Not always. A native app adds store approvals, updates for two operating systems and a download step before the student can start, and the student still needs a web page to buy from your ad. For most academies a fast, well-built responsive website that works on any phone browser is the better first step, and an app can come later when your numbers justify it. We explain what an app really costs in mobile app development cost in Egypt.
What does a mobile-first academy need? A checklist
- Pages designed for a phone screen first, with buttons large enough to tap.
- Arabic that reads correctly right to left, including menus, numbers and checkout.
- Sign-in with Google and a short sign-up form.
- Payment with the wallets and cards your students already use on their phones.
- Short lessons, ideally under 6 minutes, with light files beside each one.
- Video that streams and starts quickly on mobile data.
- Progress saved on the student's account, so they resume on any device.
- Quizzes and certificates that work on a phone, not only on a laptop.
- Reports that show where students drop off, so you can fix the lesson.
- Testing on real mid-range phones on mobile data before every launch.
How does HBS LMS handle mobile learners?
HBS LMS is designed to work first on phones. It is a responsive web platform that HBS Tech builds for your academy and hands over, not a native app, so students open it from any ad or WhatsApp link without installing anything.
- Mobile-first design. The store, course pages and lessons are designed for the phone screen first and adapt to tablets and laptops.
- Correct Arabic. Arabic and English with correct right-to-left layout, under your own logo, colours and domain.
- Google sign-in. Students sign in with their Google account instead of creating another password.
- Mobile payments. Cards, Apple Pay, Vodafone Cash and other mobile wallets through a local payment gateway, with automatic enrolment when payment completes.
- Progress saved. Students resume where they stopped, with files and attachments beside each lesson, quizzes and a completion certificate.
- Protected streaming. Videos stream through expiring links with a moving watermark, so there are no files to download and share. We explain this approach in how to protect online courses from piracy.
- Drop-off reports. Completion rate and where students drop off.
One honest trade-off: because videos stream and cannot be downloaded, students need a connection to watch. That is one more reason to keep lessons short and files light.
This article is part of our HBS LMS series. Start with the opening article, why we built HBS LMS and the problems we saw in online course businesses.
Want an academy your students can buy from, study in and finish on their phones? See how HBS LMS works and tell us about your courses. Our team will help you plan it.
