“Google Trends” is a valuable tool that describes past changes in the interest of a given
term and can predict the future. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the
popularity of four full-fledged Islamic banks, namely AlBilad, Alinma, AlJazira, and AlRajhi, in
the different regions of Saudi Arabia in the past 5 years (2015-2019) using “Google Trends”.
Search volume data were obtained from “Google Trends” search engine. Performance indicators
were obtained from banks’ annual reports. Multiple group comparisons were performed using
ANOVA. Pearson's r was used for correlation analysis. The study findings showed that AlRajhi
bank was the most popular bank in the examined period. The order of the popularity of the
examined banks was AlRajhi > AlBilad > Alinma> AlJazira. Regional variations in the
popularity of the four banks were also observed. In addition, an increase in the popularity with
years was observed in the majority of the examined banks. Finally, strong correlations were
found between mean search volumes and bank performance indicators such as total
assets(r 2 =0.969, P=0.008), capital, number of branches(r 2 =0.988, P=0.005), number of
employees(r 2 =0.982, P=0.009), and net income(r 2 =0.972, P=0.014). In conclusion, “Google
Trends” is a valid tool that can be used to examine the popularity of banks in a given
geographical region. The study provides feedback to studied banks to improve their performance
in the very competitive environment.
Keywords: Google Trends, AlRajhi, AlJazira, AlBilad, Alinma, Islamic Banking