Saudi Arabia is the leading market in the Gulf and North Africa accounting for more than a third of the amount spent on Information Technology (IT) across the region and more than double the amount spent by all the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) countries put together, stated a press release.
Industry analysts separate the IT market into three segments: IT services, computer hardware and computer software. While the IT market has slowed down in the US and Europe since 2000, mainly due to the ending of work related to the millennium bug and the bursting of the dotcom bubble, by contrast IT spending in Saudi Arabia for the year 2001 showed a 15 percent increase over the previous year.
The most significant part of this increase was due to the growth in servers and LAN hardware as companies and government departments continued to update their IT architecture and infrastructure, but spending on hardware peripherals also increased buoyed up by strong sales of printers, which recorded a 31 percent increase in vendor shipments to the Kingdom.
Forecasts for the development of computer hardware sales in the Kingdom, based on 2001 price levels, estimate that the total sales figure for 2004 will be 3.26 million Saudi riyals ($869,310), rising to a figure of SR 4.59 million for the year 2006.
The demand for computer notebooks is particularly strong in Saudi Arabia where unit sales have increased at an average rate of 54 percent since 1999 as vendors increased distribution, particularly through indirect channels such as computer specialists and retailers.
By the end of 2002 notebooks had achieved a 25 percent share of the market compared to PC sales, with a jump from 11,697 units sold in 1999 to 43,000 units sold in 2002. Trends indicate continuing strong growth, with notebook sales forecast as SR 400 million for 2004 rising to SR 560 million in 2006. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
