ICT

Like other sectors of the economy, development of Saudi Arabia’s ICT industry is being deeply influenced by the government’s Vision 2030 strategy, which emphasises the need for diversification and modernisation. However, in the context of this roadmap, ICT is not being addressed as a standalone sector, but rather as a fillip to help all other sectors transform through the adoption of digital technologies, cloud computing and e-commerce, among other applications. In 2018 a study to estimate the value of spending on ICT services concluded that it totalled $36.2bn in 2017, up by 4.6% on the previous year. Of that total, telecommunications accounted for almost two-thirds (65%), with the remaining 35% distributed between IT, hardware and software services. This chapter contains interviews with Nasser Al Nasser, CEO, Saudi Telecom Company; Mohammed AlShaibi, CEO, Tamkeen Technologies.