According to Gartner, Inc.’s newest prediction, end-user spending on public cloud services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) area would amount $5.7 billion in 2022, up 19.2 percent. While still in double digits, growth in 2022 will be smaller than the 21.6 percent increase anticipated for 2021.
“A renewed focus on technology growth post COVID-19 in the region is leading to continued growth in public cloud spending,” said Colleen Graham, senior research director at Gartner.
He added, “Various MENA governments’ policies on telemedicine, usage of autonomous vehicles, smart cities and a rapid move towards the next phase of the fourth industrial revolution are opening new growth avenues for public cloud in the region. Additionally, the attention given to building and nurturing talent will turn a new leaf in the region’s shift towards becoming a digital economy.”
CIOs across the Middle East and North Africa are looking to the cloud to get the most out of their IT expenditures during the previous two years. Cloud application services (SaaS), which include business intelligence apps, email and publishing, content services, customer experience and relationship management, and supply chain, will be the most expensive for MENA CIOs in 2022. This category will generate $2.3 billion in revenue, up 16 percent from 2021, and will account for 40% of all public cloud services spending (see Table 1).
“Public cloud services will play an important part in this transformation since many public and private sector initiatives in the pipeline rely on the successful and secure deployment of public cloud services,” Graham said.
Cloud application and infrastructure services (PaaS), the second-largest market, is expected to reach $1.1 billion in 2022, up 25.8 percent from 2021. Cloud system infrastructure services will experience the most increase (IaaS). In 2022, this category will rise by 36.8% to $895 million.
As they transition from oil-driven economies to data-driven economies, countries in the MENA area are getting swept up in the global data revolution. Enterprises harness revenues from data and digital transformation, and data and governance have become critical challenges in a data-driven economy.
Table 1.MENAPublic Cloud Services End-User Spending Forecast(Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| Segment | 2020 | 2020 Growth (%) | 2021 | 2021 Growth (%) | 2022 | 2022 Growth (%) |
| Cloud business process services (BPaaS) total | 647.9 | 7.8 | 734.7 | 13.4 | 807.2 | 9.9 |
| Cloud application infrastructure services (PaaS) total | 712.0 | 42.3 | 904.2 | 27 | 1,137.2 | 25.8 |
| Cloud application services (SaaS) total | 1,676.2 | 22 | 1,993.4 | 18.9 | 2,312.5 | 16 |
| Cloud management and security services total | 410.2 | 30 | 417.1 | 1.7 | 447.4 | 7.3 |
| Cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS) total | 442.2 | 49.5 | 654.6 | 48 | 895.2 | 36.8 |
| Cloud Desktop as a Service (DaaS) | 57.9 | 80.1 | 93.7 | 61.9 | 117.4 | 25.3 |
| Total | 3,946.5 | 26.6 | 4,797.6 | 21.6 | 5,716.9 | 19.2 |
Source: Gartner (October 2021)
