Father’s Day is becoming one of the UAE’s more commercially meaningful gifting occasions, with demand growing faster than other family holidays and consumer behaviour shifting toward smaller, more personal purchases.
Data from Udora, a UAE-based gifting marketplace, recorded a 121 per cent rise in gross merchandise value and a 124 per cent increase in order volume for Father’s Day last year. The company says that growth rate was roughly 1.5 times higher than Mother’s Day over the same period. For 2025, Udora is forecasting a 50 per cent increase in Father’s Day sales despite broader inflationary pressure.
The average order value tells a different story from the headline growth figures. In 2025, shoppers spent an average of AED 261 ($71) on Father’s Day gifts, down 3 per cent year on year and roughly 26 per cent below the average spent on Mother’s Day, where the figure reached AED 330 ($90). That gap suggests the occasion is widening its consumer base rather than deepening spend per buyer.
Flowers and confectionery led demand, with flowers up 123 per cent and confectionery up 31 per cent according to Udora’s analysis. Cakes, hampers and pastries were among the fastest-growing subcategories. Personalised card messages accompanied a growing share of orders, which the company reads as a signal that the purchase intent extends beyond the object itself.
“At Udora, we observe that people are moving from simply buying gifts to creating moments. This shift is also changing the rules of the game for the entire market, as brands need to become part of the emotions and family moments that give customers a reason to choose them over others. That is why our goal goes beyond selling products,” Slava Bogdan, CEO and Founder of Udora said in a statement.
A generational dimension sits behind the trend. Udora’s 2025 survey of 1,500 UAE respondents found that 90 per cent of Gen Z consumers view a gift as a sign of attention, rating thoughtfulness above utility. With half the UAE population under 35, younger buyers are maintaining family traditions while reshaping what gifting within those traditions looks like.
Early Google Trends data for this year shows Father’s Day-related searches have tripled one month before the holiday, which Udora interprets as more deliberate purchasing behaviour replacing last-minute default buys.
The occasion sits within a UAE gifting market that a separate industry projection expects to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.7 per cent through 2029.
Udora’s view is that Father’s Day remains relatively underdeveloped as a commercial segment despite the consumer interest now evident in the data, pointing to room for retailers to expand their range of accessible, personalised options in the category.
