du Sets Guinness World Record for Longest Promoted TikTok Livestream, Showcasing UAE’s Unstoppable Network

May. 06, 2025

In a live demonstration of pure network muscle crafted by TBWA\RAAD, du has claimed a new Guinness World Record™ for the longest promoted TikTok livestream—more than 30 hours of nonstop, on-the-move broadcasting powered exclusively by du’s 5G network.

Over the past three years, du has invested into next-generation infrastructure, resulting in the UAE’s broadest 5G footprint, gigabit-class speeds and ultra-low latency that keep streaming, cloud gaming and real-time collaboration running flawlessly. The record-breaking "Unstoppable Network" activation put those capabilities on public display, throwing every challenge imaginable at du’s 5G coverage: a single smartphone—no backup devices, no fixed lines—was passed from creator to creator on a two-day road trip through all seven Emirates, from mangrove kayaking in Abu Dhabi and dune-bashing in Liwa to zip-lining over Ras Al Khaimah and a sunrise hot-air-balloon ride above Dubai. Throughout the 1,800-minute relay, the stream never buffered, lagged or dropped.

Karim Benkirane, Chief Commercial Officer, du said:

“Films are easy to make, and stories are easy to tell, but proving performance live is a whole other game. We invited the nation to watch our network try to fail—​and it simply wouldn’t. Breaking a Guinness World Record™ wasn’t the objective; demonstrating, in real time, that du keeps you live anytime, anywhere was. Today we’ve set a new benchmark for reliability in the UAE.”

 

Reda Raad, Group Chief Executive Officer, TBWA\RAAD, added:

“This brand experience is the disruptive creative demo we needed, shifting du from telling people how great the network is to showing them instead. ‘Story doing’ at full throttle—no scripts, no safety nets—just a brave, public test of speed and reach. Disruption® is about actions that rewrite the rules, and nothing rewrites them like a live, nation-wide stress test that ends in a Guinness title.” 

 

Thousands of viewers tuned in, commenting in real time as the phone—and the network—powered across the Emirates. They didn’t just watch the UAE; they watched du refuse to quit.