GCC cloud expected to double reaching $2.4B by 2024, Saudi Arabia leading IT spending

Countries in the GCC are witnessing accelerated cloud adoption, aided by ongoing investment by cloud providers and the continued need for remote working arrangements, the International Data Corporation, IDC, has revealed. The GCC public cloud market is expected to more than double in value by 2024, growing from $956 million this year to $2.35 billion at a CAGR of 25%. The findings were revealed at a panel discussion hosted by Dubai Outsource City, a business community supporting local and international outsourcing companies, which discussed the state of cloud adoption and data centre management in the region.

Chief among the findings was that although enterprise spending on information technology has remained subdued in general, several sub-markets within the sector have witnessed strong growth. This trend was particularly highlighted in the Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service segments, in which spending has grown by 32.7%, 32% and 24.1% respectively.

The IDC also found that 53% of Chief Information Officers in the region are aiming to accelerate their existing digital transformation efforts to meet customer and business needs, whereas only 23% plan to slow down or stall these initiatives to focus on core IT tasks. Saudi Arabia is forecast to spend the highest on enterprise IT in the GCC region this year, at $5.8 billion, followed by the UAE in second with $5.3 billion.

Ammar Al Malik, Managing Director, Dubai Outsource City, said: “During these exceptional times, when the vast majority of workers are collaborating across vast spaces, distances and time zones, cloud technologies become an unprecedented necessity. By leveraging these efficiencies, we are able to greatly simplify and smoothen workflows and processes, while also contributing to Dubai’s vision to become one of the smartest, most future-ready cities in the world.”