Wholesale and retail spends the most in IT in Saudi

ITP.net, Wednesday, July 23, 2003

IT spending in Saudi Arabia is dominated by the wholesale and retail segments, according to new research from Madar Research Group. Madar’s figures for 2002 IT expenditure in the Kingdom show that wholesale and retail accounted for over 23% of Saudi’s $3.7 billion total IT expenditure.

The wholesale and retail sector has been driven by large regional and international chain stores, according to Madar, whose adoption of IT solutions to manage business created a $860 million market last year. Other sectors that invested heavily in IT were manufacturing and government, which accounted for 14.8% and 10.8% of IT spending respectively.

With Saudi Arabia accounting for almost half of all IT spending in the Gulf, vendors and solutions providers are positioning themselves to take advantage of the growing market in the country. Diyaa Zebian, regional manager Middle East and Egypt for eSolutions BEA said that demand for products such as BEA’s Weblogic Platform are growing as more and more companies look to integrate their IT systems.

“Saudi Arabia is a classic case of rapid switchover from a conventional economy into a sophisticated IT-driven Knowledge Economy that needs advanced solutions to allow integration with global applications,” said Zebian.

“Saudi Arabia’s fast-track growth in IT is a tribute to the vibrancy of the Saudi Arabian economy and the foresight that is driving businesses to migrate to next generation technologies, as it continues its push towards the Digital Economy. In such a scenario, applications like the BEA Weblogic Platform are equipped to facilitate the migration towards fully integrated IT systems, as have been proved by the success of Weblogic at an international level.” #