Middle East and Africa IT Infrastructure Spending Will Reach $3.4 Billion in 2015, says Gartner

IT infrastructure spending in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to reach $3.48 billion, a 0.9 percent increase from 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. IT infrastructure market includes storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment. The server market will continue to lead IT infrastructure spending through 2018 (see Table 1).

 “Due to continued low global oil prices, the macro economic situation in Gulf countries is creating increased economic pressure. We expect this to negatively impact IT spending, including infrastructure projects, in 2015, and indeed are already seeing signs of decreased spending in the region,” said Mary Mesaglio, research vice president at Gartner.

 CIOs will continue to focus on digital transformation with an eye on cost optimization. Cloud, infrastructure and data center, and business intelligence/analytics appear as the Top 3 CIO priorities in Gulf Countries, and these technologies, along with mobility, are emerging as the core foundational technologies for creating digital business in this region.

 Table 1: Middle East and African IT Infrastructure Revenue by Technology (US Millions of Dollars)

Source: Gartner (April 2015)

 “Cloud is one of the key drivers for IT infrastructure spend by enterprises and governments while they are creating on premise infrastructure to drive agility and performance,” said Naveen Mishra research director at Gartner. “Consolidation is another driver for data center initiatives in this region.”