MENA to Spend Over $ 11 Billion on IT

North Africa and Middle East countries will spend $11.4 billion on information technology products and services in 2015, says US firm Gartner Inc. in its forecast.

The MENA countries IT spending includes purchase of internal services, software, information technologies services, data centers, devices and telecom services.

According to the Gartner forecast, telecom services, which include fixed and mobile telecom services, are expected to take the lion’s share in overall governmental spending, reaching $ 4.7 billion in 2015, with mobile network services rapidly expanding.

In details, technology experts expect software spending to grow 2.8 percent to reach $ 1.2 billion in 2015, while other segments such as vertical-specific software (VSS) will increase 9 percent the same year to $ 454 million.

Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, the Gartner technology firm has 6,600 associates, including more than 1,500 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries.

According to Global Innovation Index 2015 of World Intellectual Property Organization, Tunisia ranked first in North Africa region followed by Morocco, while Saudi Arabia takes the lead in the Middle East region followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.

Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States of America are the world’s five most innovative nations, according to the Global Innovation Index 2015.

China, Malaysia, Viet Nam and India take top standing in the Asian continent while in Europe Finland, Ireland, Luxemburg and Demark are leading innovative countries.