The market intelligence and advisory services firm believes telecommunications services spending will increase 3.6 percent year-on-year in 2023 to reach $133.9 billion, with IT investment set to grow 4.3 percent over the same period to hit $99.9 billion.

As the region’s digital economy increasingly takes shape, IDC forecasts that the amount put into digital transformation in the META region will top $48.8 billion in 2023 and accelerate at a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent over the coming years to cross the $74 billion mark in 2026.

Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and regional managing director for the META region, said: “The region will continue to face several headwinds throughout 2023, including volatile demand, high inflation, interest rate hikes, supply chain uncertainties, and currency fluctuations.

“In order to navigate these storms of disruption, organizations will need to invest in strengthening their digital resiliency so they are better positioned to succeed in new market environments as conditions continue to change.”

The findings were revealed at the 2023 edition of IDC Directions Middle East, Türkiye, and Africa conference, held in the Dubai International Financial Centre.

Lalchandani used his address to the event to explain that the shift toward a “digital-first” approach requires enterprises to transition from traditional infrastructure that is inefficient, inflexible, and difficult to scale, to highly responsive, resilient, and adaptable infrastructure that spans edge, core, and cloud.

He also outlined IDC's predictions for the META region in 2023, including that spending on public cloud services will grow at 25 percent to surpass $10.4 billion this year, and software as a service apps will account for 43.2 percent of public cloud software spending.

Cloud managed services will grow 16.1 percent to surpass $1 billion in 2023 and $1.4 billion by 2025, while spending on artificial intelligence will increase 16.3 percent to reach $7.9 billion this year.