The Synthopia F&B Index
Release 2026.1 · collected 2026-07-02 · published 2026-09-05
5,321 food and beverage outlets in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, read from their public Google Business listings on a single day, with an Instagram sub-sample of the 683 accounts we could read. It is a snapshot of the outlets our collection reached, not a random sample of every outlet in the city. It is published so the numbers we quote elsewhere can be checked, and it is free to cite.
What we found
37.5% of the 5,321 sampled Dubai F&B outlets had not claimed their Google Business Profile.
1,998 of 5,321 outlets. Complete coverage.
An unclaimed profile still appears in search. The owner simply cannot edit the hours, reply to reviews, or add photos, so the listing drifts out of date on its own.
31.5% have fewer than ten photos on their listing.
1,676 of 5,321 outlets. Median across the sample is 37 photos.
2.1% have none at all. The mean is 296, pulled up by a long tail of large groups, which is why the median is the number worth quoting.
51.6% have fewer than fifty Google reviews.
2,517 of the 4,882 outlets carrying a rating. Median is 44 reviews.
Mean rating is 4.24 and the median is 4.3, so this is not a quality distribution. It is a volume one: most of these businesses are well liked and barely reviewed.
49.8% of readable Instagram accounts had not posted in 21 days.
340 of the 683 accounts we could locate and read, measured at the 2 July 2026 collection date.
Measured against the collection date, not today. Re-measuring an old snapshot against the present would report 100% and mean nothing.
0.8 posts per week is the median posting rate across the 683 Instagram accounts we could read.
683 readable accounts. 54.2% post less than once a week.
By district
Districts with at least 80 outlets in the sample. The cut-off is there so no neighbourhood is characterised on a handful of listings.
Across these 12 districts the two columns tend to move together: the districts with more unclaimed profiles mostly have lower median photo counts. Al Murar is 72.5% unclaimed with a median of four photos, while Trade Center First is 33.3% unclaimed with a median of sixty-nine. That link is drawn from 12 district medians, not from outlet-level data, so it describes districts rather than any single business in them.
| District | Outlets | Unclaimed | Median photos |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Murar | 229 | 72.5% | 4 |
| Naif, Deira | 223 | 60.1% | 11 |
| Hor Al Anz, Deira | 297 | 48.8% | 10 |
| Al Bada' | 191 | 46.1% | 24 |
| Al Jafiliya | 90 | 45.6% | 15 |
| Al Raffa | 132 | 43.9% | 38 |
| Al Souq Al Kabeer, Al Fahidi | 274 | 42% | 36 |
| Al Satwa | 249 | 40.6% | 18 |
| Al Muteena, Deira | 135 | 39.3% | 24 |
| Al Muraqqabat, Deira | 308 | 35.1% | 51 |
| Umm Hurair Second | 92 | 33.7% | 45 |
| Trade Center First | 111 | 33.3% | 69 |
By business type
What this sample shows: bakeries in it were more than twice as likely as Indian restaurants to have an unclaimed profile (62.2% against 28.6%), and carried a median of six photos against a hundred and sixty-two.
A hypothesis this data does not test: the types with the most unclaimed profiles (bakeries, coffee shops and cafeterias) are places people mostly walk past and into, so their owners may see less reason to keep a listing up to date. The Index measures listings, not foot traffic, size or spend, so treat that as a question rather than a finding.
| Type | Outlets | Unclaimed | Median photos |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bakery | 135 | 62.2% | 6 |
| Coffee shop | 576 | 54.3% | 10 |
| Cafeteria | 173 | 50.3% | 11 |
| Cafe | 626 | 43.9% | 21 |
| Restaurant | 1699 | 38% | 45 |
| Fast food restaurant | 86 | 32.6% | 60 |
| Supermarket | 135 | 29.6% | 31 |
| Indian restaurant | 206 | 28.6% | 162 |
Types with at least 80 outlets in the sample. Google’s own category label is used as recorded, so “Restaurant” is a catch-all and the more specific types are the more interesting rows.
Method
Every outlet in the sample is a food or beverage business with a Google Business listing in Dubai, collected in a single pass on 2 July 2026. There is no sampling frame beyond that: it is not a random sample of Dubai F&B, it is the set our collection reached, and it skews toward businesses that are findable on Google in the first place.
Google Business fields (claimed status, photo count, rating, review count, district) were read for all 5,321 outlets. Claimed status has complete coverage, which is why it carries the headline.
Instagram figures come only from the 683 accounts we could locate and read. They are reported against that base and never against 5,321, because an account we did not find is not an account that does not exist.
Delivery-platform presence was collected for too small a share of the sample to support a finding and is excluded rather than reported with a caveat.
What this does not show
Every limitation we know about, because a research page that lists none is not being careful, it is being quiet.
- This is one snapshot, taken on one day. It shows a distribution, not a trend, and nothing here should be read as a change over time.
- The sample is what our collection reached, not a random sample of Dubai F&B. It over-represents businesses that are already findable on Google.
- Instagram figures cover the 683 accounts we could read, not 5,321 outlets. The accounts we could read may be the more active ones, so these figures may not describe the accounts we could not find.
- Delivery-platform data was collected on too few rows to report and has been excluded entirely.
- We sell marketing software to these businesses. Read the findings with that in mind; they are published so you can check them rather than take our word for it.
Citing it
Free to cite and reproduce, including commercially, with attribution to the Synthopia F&B Index and a link to this page. Please quote the release version and the collection date alongside any figure.
Suggested form: Synthopia F&B Index 2026.1, collected 2026-07-02, synthopia.ai/fnb-index.
This is the first release, and we plan to publish further releases quarterly. Any new release appears beside this one rather than replacing it, so a figure you quote today still says the same thing when someone checks it.
Corrections, or a request for a cut we have not published: hello@synthopia.ai. If a number here is wrong we will fix it and date the fix.
Who publishes this
Synthopia makes marketing software for owner-run consumer brands, and we sell to the businesses in this sample. That is a conflict worth stating plainly rather than burying: the findings are published with their method and their limits so you can check them instead of trusting us.