Like the UAE as a whole, Dubai has one of the most advanced telecoms and IT markets in the Middle East, boasting high levels of smartphone and internet penetration, fast mobile internet speeds and a rapidly growing start-up scene. While prices in the sector – and the fixed-line market in particular – are relatively high, both the fixed-line...
A leading centre for entrepreneurship in the MENA region, the UAE counted 940 start-ups as of late August 2017, according to Magnitt, a Middle Eastern start-up support service provider and directory. The largest subsegment of this was e-commerce, with 135 listed start-ups. This figure is by far the highest of any country in the Middle East and...
With 4G connections now well established throughout much of the world, international telecoms players are now working towards the launch of 5G, the next generation of mobile data networks. Notable progress towards this was made in March 2017, when the Third Generation Partnership Project – a group of seven telecoms development organisations...
The cost of a smartphone in Saudi Arabia has declined rapidly in recent years. The arrival of affordable brands such as China’s InnJoo, which entered the market in late 2014 with a model priced at SR299 ($79.70), has made smartphone technology more accessible than ever. In July 2017 another Chinese firm, Huawei, pushed the iPhone into third...
One of the effects of the current low-oil price environment has been a return of the concept of Saudiisation to the top of the economic agenda – a development which has had significant impacts on the telecoms sector. In 2016 the Kingdom introduced its latest iteration of the nitaqat framework, a system that evaluates companies on their...
The GCC region, with its high disposable incomes, saturated mobile telephony markets, rapidly increasing smartphone penetration and young populations, has all the necessary ingredients for an e-commerce boom. Estimates as to the size of the region’s e-commerce market and its potential growth trajectory vary, but a comprehensive study carried...
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