Annual spending on mobility across Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) is expected to reach $185 billion in three years.
This was revealed in the International Data Corporation's (IDC's) new 'Mobility Spending Guide', which notes the amount represents a 10.2% share of worldwide spend. The IDC forecasts worldwide mobility spend will total $1.8 trillion in 2019.
The IDC's spending guide outlines spending in both the enterprise and consumer segments on mobile devices, software and services; across industries, geographies and industry sizes.
According to the IDC, META's most active countries in terms of mobility spend include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, SA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Together, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, SA and the UAE accounted for approximately 38.7% of the entire mobility opportunity within the META region in 2015, say IDC predictions. The rest of the META region is expected to grow at a faster compound annual growth rate of 5.1% over the 2014 to 2019 period.
The research firm says while services account for approximately two-thirds of the total mobility opportunity in META, software is the fastest-growing category among the technology categories. Software spending will grow from $164.3 million in 2015 to $330 million in 2019.
Although companies in META lag behind Western Europe in the adoption of mobility, approximately 64% of organisations in the region have plans to make modest-to-major investments in business applications for mobile devices. Large firms are more active in this respect.
Mobility spending (including hardware, software and services) by META manufacturing organisations will grow from $5.8 billion in 2015 to $6.5 billion in 2019. Meanwhile, both the retail and banking and financial services verticals will see increases from approximately $3 billion to $3.8 billion in 2019 over the same period.
"The META mobility market is generally on the rise," says Krishna Chinta, programme manager for telecommunications and media at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
Chinta adds: "However, due to the diversity of the region's economic conditions, the adoption of mobility is more mature in markets such as the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and Turkey, while countries in Africa remain largely underpenetrated.
"Africa itself is also a diverse region where countries such as SA and Nigeria are more mature than markets such as Ghana and Namibia, which typically remain underdeveloped.
"While the low penetration rates across Africa naturally present considerable growth potential for mobility, the ongoing economic diversification measures under way in the GCC will also drive the growth of mobility across the META region."
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