(MENAFN) According to a recent report by International Data Corporation (IDC), the Middle East and Africa spending on information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to register a growth by 9 percent in 2015 to more than USD270 billion, Saudi Gazette reported.
The report indicated that the MEA region is the second-fastest growing market worldwide after Latin America, with public cloud services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) beginning to begin taking the focus away from traditional software and service bases.
Among the Gulf countries, Qatar is expected to register the biggest percentage growth in spending, growing by 11.36 percent, followed by Saudi Arabia by 5.44 percent and the UAE by 5.32 percent, with the majority of the growth expected to come from software, services and mobile phones, while wireless and fixed data will drive the growth in telecom services.
These tools such as IaaS, which is a model in which an organization outsources the equipment needed to support operations, and SaaS, which is a model that allows organizations to gain access to software, are expected to be adopted by both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with their investments expected to reach USD280 million, registering a growth of 33 percent compared with their investments in the prior year.
"If oil prices go down further then the government spending will slow down in countries that do not have surplus oil revenues. So, smaller countries like Bahrain and Oman, without surplus, may need some sort of aid to fund their ICT spending," The report said.
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