The 8th edition of the ICT Indicators Forum, held on March 29 in Riyadh, revealed that Saudi Arabia is now home to one of the world’s fastest growing ICT markets and the kingdom’s ICT spending set to top $32.9 billion (SAR 123.4 billion).
“The growth we have forecast for Saudi Arabia’s ICT sector in 2022 is particularly significant when viewed in a regional context. And this is feeding into a broader global trend, with IDC forecasting that worldwide ICT spending will increase from $3.86 trillion (SAR 14.48 trillion) in 2021 to $5.34 trillion (SAR20.03 trillion) in 2025,” Hamza Naqshbandi, IDC’s associate vice president for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Steven Frantzen, IDC’s senior vice president and managing director for the EMEA region, urged businesses to prepare for the future, the role they will play in it, and the impact they want to achieve.
“Digital is now a permanent, yet dynamic fixture in our world,” said Frantzen. “Entire industries want to intelligently leverage data to their advantage and can do so because they have faster access to digital technologies. But ‘digital first’ isn’t about picking/prioritizing a particular technology or business model — it’s an organizational aspiration and a desired business cultural characteristic that should apply across customer engagement, hybrid work, unified security, remote operations, and shared business value.”
