But it is not just government initiatives that are stoking growth.
Businesses are rapidly adopting cloud services. IDC predicts an explosion in growth in cloud services across the region with a 25% annual growth over the next 5 years. This culminates in total cloud spending of $2.5 billion by that time. IDC identifies an urgency to shift to OPEX from capital spending as well as the need to drive more digital initiatives across private and public sectors, as being instrumental to this growth.
Closely linked is the increasing penetration of internet and mobile internet services.
Euromonitor International states over 94% of households in GCC countries have internet access creating a foundation that has fostered tremendous growth in e-commerce. In UAE alone, internet penetration reached 377 per 100 population in 2021, suggesting multiple devices per person. These trends are supported by the findings of Google’s Next Billion Users project and Stastica’s finding that Arabic is now the 4th most common language on the internet.