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ALKESH SHARMA / EMIRATES BUSINESS
Enthused by the huge capital inflow and enhanced shopper expenditure on mobile devices, software and related services, the annual spending on mobility across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region is expected to reach a whopping $185 billion by 2019.
This constitutes a 10.2 percent share of worldwide enterprises and individual consumer spending that is predicted to achieve the target of $1.8 trillion in 2019. The encouraging picture for the industry has been painted in the IDC’s new ‘Mobility Spending Guide’.
“The META mobility market is generally on the rise. However, due to the diversity of the region’s economic conditions, the adoption of mobility is more mature in markets such as the GCC and Turkey, while countries in Africa remain largely underpenetrated,†said Krishna Chinta, programme manager for telecommunications and media at IDC META.
Saudi Arabia is the single largest mobility market in META, followed by Turkey. Together, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa and the UAE accounted for approximately 38.7 percent of the entire mobility opportunity within the META region in 2015.
The rest of the META region is expected to grow at faster compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.1 percent over the 2014-19 period. However, IDC predicted that if on one hand slump in oil prices could slightly hinder the mobility sector growth in GCC for some time then on the other hand low
penetration rate in Africa region
could represent plethora of growth
opportunities.