arXiv popularity from a citation analysis point of view

This study aims to provide an overview of the citation rate of arXiv.org since its launch in August 1991, based on the Scopus citation database. The total number of citations to arXiv in Scopus in the 26 year period was 135,782 of which the highest number of citations was 23,288 in 2016. It is also shown that arXiv-deposited papers are highly cited by physics and astronomy, mathematics, computer science, and engineering. It can be seen that researchers from the United States, Germany, China, United Kingdom, France, and Italy cite arXiv-deposited papers more than others. The analysis of document types indicate that articles rank first with 69% of all Scopus documents citing arXiv from 19912016, followed by conference papers (24.7%), reviews (3.2%), and book chapters (1.5%). It can be concluded that arXiv is cited increasingly by different subject areas, by different languages (especially English, Chinese and French), and by various countries.