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DUBAI / Emirates Business
Middle East and North Africa (Mena) IT spending is projected to reach $160 billion in 2019, a 1.8 percent increase from 2018, according to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc.
“In 2019, businesses in Mena are set to increase their IT spending in all segments except for the devices segment,†said John Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. The achie- vement of a 1.8 percent growth rate this year is placing Mena 7th out of the 11 regions tracked by Gartner in 2019.
The banking and securities industry is projected to total $13.2 billion in 2019, the largest IT spending among 11 industries. It will also exhibit the fastest growth rate at 5 percent year over year. “Banks in Mena must keep investing in IT in order to participate in the international banking system. At the same time, IT security has always been on the radar and has now become the No. 1 priority for senior banking executives,†said Miriam Burt, managing research vice president at Gartner.
Consumer spending in Mena has reached a tipping point. Consumers are on pace to spend $532 million on upgrading or replacing their mobile phones in 2019, and expect to spend $63.7 billion on mobile services in 2019, up $1 billion from 2018. In the enterprise sector, organisations are increasing their spending on software, which continues to be the fastest growing sector in 2019. Nevertheless, despite the rapid growth of software as a service in the region (25.8 percent in 2019), the region is below the global average for the percentage of total cloud spending.
Gartner analysts are discussing key IT and business issues that are driving the evolution of digital business during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Dubai.
Software and IT services are projected to exhibit the strongest growth in 2019, with an 11.5 and 7.5 percent increase year over year respectively. The communications services segment, the largest spending segment in Mena and the fourth fastest growing segment in the world, is set to increase 1.8 per cent year over year. Organisations in Mena plan to reduce spending on fixed line. The devices market is projected to exhibit a decline of 2.2 percent.