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UAE, Saudi to drive regional surge in security software spending

Stricter compliance regulations are being introduced across the region

Published: Sun 24 Mar 2024, 8:48 PM

By
Issac John

Spending on IT security products and services in the Middle East and Africa, excluding Israel, will grow 10.3 per cent year on year in 2024 to reach $6.2 billion, driven by major initiatives underway in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

A forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) indicates that this figure will reach $8.4 billion in 2027, representing a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent over the 2023–2027 forecast period.

Stricter compliance regulations are being introduced across the region, with major initiatives underway in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Accordingly, the sector is expected to spend more on services, particularly integration services and managed security services. There will also be significant investments in endpoint security software and network security software across both the government and financial services sectors, IDC said in its latest Worldwide Security Spending Guide.

“Security software will account for the majority of the overall security spending in the region. The region's intensifying threat landscape and spike in cybercrime, alongside greater cybersecurity awareness and the need to ensure regulatory compliance, will drive strong demand for software solutions, resulting in software being the fastest growing technology group for the year,” IDC said.

A Mordor Intelligence report forecasts that the UAE cybersecurity market size is estimated to grow to $0.59 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach $1.07 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 12.72 per cent during the forecast period (2024-2029).

According to a new forecast from Gartner, end-user spending on security and risk management (SRM) in the Middle East and North Africa region is forecast to total $3.3 billion in 2024, an increase of 12.1 per cent from 2023.

The rapid digitalization in the UAE has triggered the number of connected devices by opening new cyberattack gateways. Cybersecurity has become increasingly imperative for governments and companies as digitization has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with digital criminal activity increasing, according to cybersecurity experts.

The UAE’s government has been emphasizing cybersecurity owing to increasing cyberattacks. According to the World Economic Forum's 'The Global Risks Report' of this year, the risk of cybersecurity failure is ranked among the top five concerns for the UAE.

"Across the MEA region, there has been a huge shift away from legacy infrastructure, with organizations increasingly embracing a digital-first mindset, particularly with regard to cloud adoption," says Yotasha Thaver, a research analyst for software and cybersecurity at IDC. "Such initiatives have expanded the threat surface of organizations within the region, leading to a surge in cybercrime such as phishing, DDoS attacks, data leakage, and social engineering. At the same time, cybersecurity awareness has increased considerably, as has the need to ensure regulatory compliance and improve the security posture of organizations. The MEA region is seeing a rapid expansion of cybersecurity initiatives and will therefore see huge growth over the next few years; however, with budget constraints persisting, the cost of security solutions remains a key area of concern."

The financial services and government sectors will be the MEA region's biggest spenders on security products and services in 2024, together accounting for nearly a third of the market's value, IDC report said. “They will remain the largest security spenders through 2027. Banks will account for 85.6 per cent of the financial services sector's total spending on security products and services in 2024, due to the proliferation of targeted attacks and the sensitive nature of their business.”

The telecommunications industry, which is heavily focused on endpoint security, network security appliances, and managed security services, will be the third-largest contributor to overall security spending in the MEA region in 2024.