Saudi Arabia ICT Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends And Forecast (2025 - 2030)

Saudi Arabia ICT Market Trends and Insights

Vision 2030 Public-Sector Digitization Programs

Saudi Arabia’s climb to 4th in the UN Digital Services Index illustrates rapid e-government progress, with agencies targeting 90% uptake of premium services by 2025 ^{[1]Saudi Press Agency. "Saudi Arabia Attends Preparatory Meeting for World Telecommunication Development Conference." April 17, 2025.}. Platforms ranging from blockchain-based identities to AI chatbots drive steady demand for software, sovereign cloud, and cybersecurity. Unified charging-port rules effective 2025 likewise showcase how regulation can immediately redirect ICT spending, saving consumers SAR 170 million (USD 45.3 million) annually while cutting 2.2 million e-waste units ^{[2]Communications, Space & Technology Commission. "Communications, Space & Technology Commission." Accessed February 15, 2025.} . Vendors that align with mandated standards secure long-term contracts, reinforce interoperability, and influence procurement norms across the Saudi Arabia ICT market.

5G Network Rollout and Subscriber Monetization

stc Group, Mobily, and Zain KSA collectively lit up nationwide 5G, enabling premium consumer plans and private-network solutions for factories, ports, and energy fields. stc’s brand value reached USD 16.1 billion in 2024, reflecting strong 5G monetization. Spectrum auctions, 60% foreign-ownership caps, and infrastructure-sharing rules keep deployment costs manageable, while edge-computing nodes and slicing APIs open new enterprise revenue. Saudi Arabia’s telecom revenue base is now forecast to hit USD 22.22 billion by 2029, largely on 5G-linked services.

NEOM and Giga-Projects’ Hyperscale Demand

The USD 20 billion DataVolt-Supermicro agreement for AI data centers in NEOM represents the single largest ICT infrastructure order ever booked in the Kingdom. LEAP 2025 alone unveiled USD 20 billion in fresh AI commitments, spurring orders for liquid-cooling racks, edge fabrics, and quantum-grade security modules. Submarine cables and regional IX points follow, feeding workloads into Riyadh and Eastern Province data hubs. Domestic telecoms have responded; Mobily earmarked USD 905 million for cables and campuses, while stc lifted its data-center outlay to USD 266 million.

Accelerated Cloud and SaaS Adoption by SMEs

SMEs long underserved by enterprise IT become the fastest-growing buying group as sovereign cloud and Vision 2030 grants cut cost and complexity. Google’s new cloud region in Dammam trims latency and satisfies data-residency rules, making SaaS viable even for micro-retailers. Government programs subsidize migration assessments and offer tax credits on software spend. stc reported engagements with 665 SMEs in 2023, illustrating rising traction for marketplace bundles that package IaaS, cyber tools, and finance software. The pattern widens the revenue base for the Saudi Arabia ICT market, reducing over-reliance on oil-and-gas majors.

Shortage of Advanced ICT Talent and Saudization Gap

A 20% talent gap persists in security operations, AI engineering, and cloud architecture, inflating project costs and timelines. Korn Ferry estimates wage inflows of USD 33.6 billion by 2030 as companies outbid each other for scarce skills. Saudization rules require local headcount, yet only 18.6% of private-sector IT posts are held by nationals, forcing heavy spend on academies and managed services. The National Cybersecurity Authority now demands in-house Saudi expertise for all critical-infrastructure audits, driving urgent but slow upskilling programs.

Local-Content and Hosting Rules Limiting Foreign Cloud Entrants

CST’s Essential Cybersecurity Controls lock sensitive workloads inside Saudi borders and levy fines up to SAR 25 million (USD 6.6 million) for breaches. International providers must invest in domestic facilities, perform security audits locally, and commit to knowledge transfer. While the measures spur data-center construction, they also elongate time-to-market for newcomers and limit feature rollouts pending certification. The net effect tempers competitive pricing pressure within the Saudi Arabia ICT market, preserving margins for incumbent players but potentially slowing innovation cadence.

Segment Analysis

By Type: Software Acceleration Drives Diversification

Telecommunication Services retained 32.17% Saudi Arabia ICT market share in 2024 as 5G subscriber monetization ramped. Yet IT Software leads growth at 9.63% CAGR, supported by SDAIA’s effort to train 20,000 AI specialists and Vision 2030’s goal of USD 135.2–235.2 billion GDP uplift from AI. Enterprise application suites, middleware, and security stacks displace proprietary hardware, while SaaS models unlock cash-flow advantages for SMEs. The Saudi Arabia ICT market size attributable to software platforms is forecast to nearly double by 2030 as organizations modernize legacy stacks and meet cybersecurity mandates. Hardware demand remains steady for edge routers and data-center builds, but value is shifting to orchestration layers, APIs, and analytics engines.

Meanwhile, end-user device vendors tackle the 2025 USB-C deadline that standardizes charging ports, trimming SKU complexity yet pushing firmware redesigns. Network-equipment orders mirror 5G rollout phases and metro fiber densification. Managed IT services flourish because customers outsource technical debt remediation to system integrators that can guarantee compliance and uptime. As such, software’s rising share rebalances vendor revenue models away from capex-heavy, low-margin hardware toward subscription-led recurring streams across the Saudi Arabia ICT market.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By End-user Enterprise Size: SME Digitization Momentum

Large Enterprises commanded 71.33% of Saudi Arabia ICT market size in 2024 owing to multi-billion-dollar budgets in oil, gas, and public administration. However, SMEs exhibit a 10.73% CAGR through 2030, rapidly narrowing the digital-gap. Fiscal incentives, low-touch SaaS provisioning, and pay-as-you-grow cloud bundles pull micro-retailers and manufacturing clusters into formal ICT consumption. Google’s AI hub near Dammam specifically tailors language models and analytics to Arabic SME workflows, compressing deployment cycles and cost.

Large-cap entities such as Saudi Aramco still anchor spend with AI-driven field optimization and mega data-lake initiatives. Yet their procurement cycles favor mature vendors able to meet Tier-IV uptime and stringent national-security criteria. Conversely, SMEs tolerate standard SLAs but demand local payment gateways and Arabic interfaces, a niche now addressed by emerging start-ups. The two-tier dynamic balances stability and growth in the Saudi Arabia ICT market, fostering diversified revenue portfolios for service providers.

By End-user Industry Vertical: Healthcare Digital Transformation

Government and Public Sector represented 24.66% Saudi Arabia ICT market share in 2024 on the back of e-services, smart-card IDs, and national cloud contracts. Healthcare posts the fastest 13.64% CAGR, catalyzed by Seha Virtual Hospital, which handled 255,765 patients via teleconsultations, and the Sehhaty app’s 1.6 million sessions. Electronic medical records, AI triage engines, and wearables integrate into a secured, sovereign cloud that satisfies patient-data mandates.

BFSI drives security-tech uptake as open-banking and instant-payment platforms go live. Oil and Gas continues heavy spend on IIoT sensors, predictive analytics, and digital twins Aramco attributes a 15% output lift at Khurais to such systems. Retail and E-commerce adds omnichannel engines and last-mile robotics. Collectively, these verticals diversify demand streams, buffering the Saudi Arabia ICT market against sector-specific shocks.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Deployment Model: Cloud Sovereignty Drives Growth

Cloud captured 43.88% of Saudi Arabia ICT market size in 2024 and is projected to grow at 14.47% CAGR, propelled by AWS’s USD 5.3 billion build and Equinix’s USD 1 billion interconnection hub. Sovereign cloud rules require critical workloads to stay in-country, aligning hyperscaler roadmaps with telecom landlords who offer power, land, and government relations. Hybrid architectures emerge as the default for regulated sectors, combining on-premise appliances for secret data tiers with burst-to-cloud economics for AI training.

On-premise remains indispensable in defense and central-bank cores, where air-gapped resilience trumps cost. Meanwhile, edge mini-clouds proliferate in factories and wind farms, keeping latency-sensitive analytics local while syncing summaries to regional data lakes. Tencent Cloud’s USD 150 million commitment affirms foreign appetite despite compliance hurdles, broadening service choice and pressuring prices across the Saudi Arabia ICT market.

Geography Analysis

Riyadh dominates spending and policy formulation, housing ministries, regulators, and most headquarters. Major banks, oil majors, and government cloud nodes cluster here, ensuring a baseline of high-bandwidth connectivity and continuous ICT procurement cycles. The capital’s data-center footprint now exceeds 250 MW, with additional campuses under construction as sovereign-cloud mandates intensify capacity needs.

The Eastern Province leverages industrial heft refineries, petrochem, and logistics to accelerate IIoT deployments. Google’s Dammam region cuts latency for factory-floor AI, while edge gateways tie into 5G private networks at Jubail and Ras Al-Khair ports. Supply-chain modernization across Dhahran and Al-Khobar introduces blockchain tracking and predictive-maintenance dashboards, widening addressable spend within the Saudi Arabia ICT market.

NEOM’s northwestern zone forms an emerging tech corridor that will host the Kingdom’s largest AI compute clusters, powered by renewables and sea-water cooling. DataVolt’s hyperscale campus seeds a regional mesh connecting submarine cables landing on Red Sea shores to Riyadh cores. Government offers unified licenses to expedite spectrum and fiber build-outs, attracting start-ups and global vendors chasing first-mover advantage. Together, these geographies position the Saudi Arabia ICT market as a central hub for MENA digital traffic while balancing growth across regions.