Saudi smartphone market continues decline, but IDC believes worst is over - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Saudi Arabia's smartphone market experienced a 15.3 per cent year-on-year decline in shipments in 2018, according to the latest figures announced today by International Data Corporation (IDC), reports ITREALMS.

The global technology research and consulting firm's newly released Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows smartphone shipments to the Kingdom fell to 7.5 million in 2018, down 48% on the market's peak in 2015.

The Saudi market's performance was broadly in line with the overall trend of the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, where smartphone shipments were down 12.2 per cent year on year in 2018. With Saudi Arabia being biggest market in GCC, accounting for 47 per cent of all smartphone shipments to the region last year, any declines felt in this market are bound to affect the region's overall performance.

The Saudi smartphone market has been in a dire situation since 2016, when the first aggressive decline occurred. IDC's data shows there was a 30% year-on-year decline in smartphone shipments in 2016, followed by a further 13% fall in 2017 and now a 15k per cent drop off in 2018.

"These massive double-digit declines have been caused by many different factors, beginning with the Saudization of the mobile phone industry in 2016 that caused more than 40 per cent of independent retailers to shut down," says Nabila Popal, senior research manager for mobile phones at IDC. "Then there was the introduction of VAT in 2017, as well as a reduction in government subsidies and the implementation of dependent taxes – all of which caused a significant reduction in consumer disposable income. These factors and the overall lack of innovation in the smartphone space have led to a lengthening of the refresh cycle. Indeed, consumers are becoming smarter, carefully analyzing the cost versus features of all new devices, and simply do not see the need to upgrade their devices as often as before."

In terms of vendor dynamics, there was considerable movement over the course of the year. The top brands for 2018 as a whole were Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, with unit shares of 34.8 per cent, 28.4 per cent, and 19.6k per cent, respectively. However, by the final quarter of the year Huawei had mirrored its global position by moving into second place and pushing Apple down into third. Honor has also grown drastically to reach fourth position.

"Huawei's growth in the region, at such a time when leading brands are declining, is to be commended," says Popal. "There is a tendency to attribute this growth purely to good features, low prices, and great marketing, but Huawei's success in the GCC has also been influenced by its focus on providing dedicated and customized channel support. By doing this, Huawei is able to respond quickly to local market conditions and directly help its channel partners clear slow-moving stock."

Looking ahead, IDC's outlook for Saudi Arabia's smartphone market in 2019 is not too rosy; however, it appears that the worst is over and that the market is starting to stabilize. While IDC does not expect the Saudi smartphone space to see any major growth in 2019, it is expecting the road to recovery to begin this year, with forecasts showing a flat or very slight decline in the market.

"The arrival of 5G and foldable devices this year may bring some movement to the market as they will finally feed the intense craving from consumers for some genuine innovation," says Popal. "However, given the high price tags likely to come with these devices, they will take time to gain traction. So, while they will undoubtedly generate some long overdue excitement, I wouldn't expect them to bring double-digit growth to the struggling smartphone market."

Nenye Dom/Editor

*JOIN our alert's group | Share stories with us | Advert placement: WhatsApp | SMS: +2348033592762 *Twitter: @ITREALMS *Email: itrealms.dsa@gmail.com*

IDC gathers influential ICT leaders @ Jeddah - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has hosted its first day of the eighth annual Saudi Arabia CIO Summit at the InterContinental Jeddah, thus bringing together influential information and communication technology leaders to the city, reports ITREALMS.

With the theme 'Enabling a Blueprint for Thriving in the Digital Economy', the Summit attracted more than 100 of the Kingdom's most prominent ICT leaders and showcased innovative strategies for embracing the disruptive power of digital transformation.

Targeted exclusively at C-level executives and above, the event combined thought-provoking presentations, interactive workshops, panel discussions, and case studies, all while facilitating one-to-one meetings between the providers of cutting-edge technology solutions and the influential decision makers responsible for driving their implementation.

IDC's senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Mr. Steven Frantzen, set the tone for the day's discussions with his opening address about the need for organizations in Saudi Arabia to accelerate their digital transformation efforts. "As the digital revolution continues to heat up, digital champions and disruptors are emerging in all different kinds of industries," he said.

"These organizations are increasingly setting the Kingdom's investment agenda as they embrace a new generation of innovation-accelerating technologies to completely transform the way they execute processes, engage with customers, create business value, and deliver their products and services. Ultimately, entire traditional business models will be challenged by the new business models born on digital foundations."

Chuks Egbune/ED, Ops

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

IDC launches CIO Advisory Council

ITREALMS:

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has formally launched its new CIO Advisory Council, an independent industry body tasked with spurring collaboration, incubating innovation, and accelerating the proliferation of new technology trends across the Gulf region, reports ITRealms.

"The CIO Advisory Council will provide strategic direction to IDC in terms of research coverage, thereby assisting us in our quest to provide the region's ICT professionals with a trusted, neutral, and secure source of information, advocacy, and resources for enhancing their processes and shaping the technology landscape of tomorrow," says Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC's vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "Its members have also been instrumental in shaping the agenda for the upcoming IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2018 , and will chair a number of informative sessions at the event."

Membership of IDC's CIO Advisory Council, the VP said, is strictly by invitation only and is restricted to senior executives from the region's foremost end-user organizations. 

The founding members include the following esteemed leaders, whose influence on the region's ICT environment extends far beyond the widely respected organizations they represent:

• H.E. Wesam Lootah, CEO, Smart Dubai Government Establishment
• Mr. Fuad Al Ansari, Vice President of IT, ADNOC Refining
• Mr. Yahya Abdulrahman, Executive Director of IT & Communications, Saudi Electricity Company
• Mr. Ahmad Almulla, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services, Emirates Global Aluminium
• Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO, Information Technology Authority, Oman
• Mr. Robert Teagle, Group CIO, Kuwait Food Company (Americana Group)

ITRealms gathered that one of the members' first tasks is to sit on the official judging panel that will review nominations for the IDC CIO Excellence Awards 2018, which will honor those ICT leaders that have excelled in conceptualizing and delivering game-changing digital transformation initiatives for their organizations. With five categories in total, the winners will be announced during the IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2018 on February 21-22, and the Council's members will be personally handing out the awards.

Nonye Dom/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

West African telcos battle declining ARPU says IDC

ITRealms:

The telecommunications companies across Africa and especially in West Africa are increasingly focusing on effectively maximizing their return on investment from data and on monetizing emerging opportunities such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to remain competitive and afloat, reports ITRealms.

The research director for telecommunications, media, and IoT at International Data Corporation (IDC), Mr. George Kalebaila, made this disclosure, attributing this largely to increasing levels of competition that is forcing them to seek new methods to stem the steady decline of traditional voice services via the Average Revenues Per User (ARPUs).

ITRealms gathered that ARPU also known as average revenue per unit is a measure used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies, defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers over a given period or month.

"We expect to see greater market consolidation as telcos increase their efforts to acquire smaller ISPs in response to the challenging marketing conditions," he said.

Kalebaila was particular about telcos operating in West Africa, saying this has been driven by heightened market saturation, declining average revenues per user (ARPUs), increasing operating expenditure, and diminishing profit margins on services.

As such, he said, IDC expects some consolidation within the market, especially between local ISPs that possess 4G LTE frequencies and fibre-to-the-x (FTTX) infrastructure and multinational telcos with solid financial support.

In markets where 4G adoption is already gaining traction, discussions around fifth-generation network technology (5G) will take center stage, creating awareness and bringing the possibilities and expectations of future data networks to the forefront.

"IDC expects vendors to focus on the higher bandwidth 5G offers and the technology's potential ability to support emerging services such as IoT, seamless video on demand or Internet Protocol Tv (IPTV), drone video recording, smart city solutions, and virtual reality applications," Kalebaila said.

IDC, ITRealms reports also expected 5G to deliver gigabit connections that enable the seamless delivery of rich multimedia services and applications.

As competition continues to increase in Africa's more mature telecom and IT markets, the need to attract and retain customers through differentiation has become imperative. This means that telcos must move beyond traditional connectivity offerings and provide IT services such as unified communications and collaboration, cloud, and datacenter services.

"In the medium to long term, telcos will be forced to re-evaluate their business models to efficiently design, develop, and deliver cost-effective solutions and services," Kalebaila said.

He pointed out that this may compel telcos to migrate from operating legacy networks to deploying agile systems that are capable of increasing operational efficiency while speeding up the time to market of new solutions.

“Those telcos that prioritize technologies such as network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) for the delivery of connectivity, cloud, and datacenter services will be well placed to maximize cost savings, achieve greater efficiency, and increase productivity," he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

IDC foresees spending on IoT reach $7.8bn

ITRealms:

The Internet of Things (IoT) market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) has been forecasted to defy the region's moderate economic outlook by growing 19.6 per cent year-on-year in 2017 to total $7.8 billion, according to a recent update to the Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC), reports ITRealms.

Research analyst for telecommunications, IoT, and digital media at IDC MEA, Mr. Wale Babalola, disclosed this, noting that when compared favorably to the healthy 18.1 per cent growth seen in 2016, the market's performance to the proliferation of digital transformation initiatives across the region as businesses and government entities strive to boost productivity and improve efficiency.

"The MEA IoT market is becoming increasingly competitive, enabling organizations to source a range of innovative digital solutions aimed at transforming business operations, improving the customer experience, and enhancing employee engagement. Indeed, IoT now offers a myriad of industry-specific solutions that can be easily deployed by organizations in a bid to stay ahead of competition.

"IDC expects the manufacturing, transportation, and utilities industries to see the highest levels of IoT-related spending in 2017 as organizations across these verticals look to digitalize their operations and improve their value proposition across different lines of business. The commitment of service providers, application developers, and OEMs to developing purpose built end-to-end IoT solutions is serving as a major driver of the growing adoption we are seeing across the region."

Manufacturing organizations will lead the way in 2017, with IDC forecasting IoT-related spending of $1.3 billion for this vertical. The 'manufacturing operations' use case will account for more than 51% of this investment. 'Manufacturing operations' is an IoT use case that supports digitally-executed manufacturing and the way in which manufacturers use intelligent and interconnected I/O (input output) tools (e.g., sensors, actuators, drives, vision/video equipment) to enable different components in the manufacturing field (e.g., machine tools, robots, conveyor belts) to autonomously exchange information, trigger actions, and control each other independently.

The transportation industry is also forecast to see IoT-related spending of around $1.3 billion in 2017. The 'freight monitoring' use case is expected to account for $849 million of this figure, which aptly highlights the increasing importance of monitoring goods and improving productivity. The use of IoT for freight management purposes (air, railroad, land, or sea) is based on RFID, GPS, GPRS, and GIS technology to create intelligent, internet-connected transportation systems. These systems perform intelligent recognition, location, tracking, and monitoring of freight and cargo by exchanging information and real-time communications via wireless, satellite, and other channels.

IDC forecasts IoT-related spending by MEA utilities to reach $918 million in 2017, with investments around 'smart grid' technologies to account for more than 82% of this total. Smart grids are rapidly gaining traction across the region as municipalities increasingly see the value proposition in deploying related solutions in an effort to efficiently distribute resources to their respective end customers.

"Numerous smart city projects are already underway across the region, and the propagation of such initiatives will continue to fuel IoT adoption by both public and private sector organizations," says Babalola. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the charge when it comes to smart cities, so it makes sense that these two countries will account for the highest contributions to overall IoT investment in MEA during 2017, with a combined value of more than $1.6 billion."

IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide forecasts IoT revenues for 12 technologies and 47 use cases across 20 vertical industries in 8 regions and 52 countries. 

Nonye Dom/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Telcos considering selling African subsidiaries

ITRealms:

After some years of operations, many telecommunications companies are considering selling some of their African subsidiaries, largely due to concerns around sustainability and profitability, ITRealms reports

According to global technology research and consulting firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), these challenges have led some global telcos to reconsider their plans for the region. Africa may well be the next frontier for growth but a number of major players have encountered serious challenges around the profitability of their investments in trying to establish a sustainable and economically viable footprint on the continent.

Etisalat Group, for example,ITRealms gathered, entered into an agreement in 2014 that saw Maroc Telecom acquire its subsidiaries operating under the Moov brand in Francophone West Africa (i.e., Benin, Central African Republic, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Niger, and Togo). 

The deal also included Prestige Telecom, a company based in the Ivory Coast that provided IT services to Etisalat's operations in the six aforementioned countries. The move was spurred by the steadily declining revenues that Etisalat was pulling in from its international subsidiaries, with all of its West African operations (including Nigeria) contributing just 7 per cent to its overall revenues in 2014.

In another development, BhartiAirtel entered 15 African markets in 2010 after acquiring Zain's subsidiaries on the continent, and has since expanded into two more markets. 

However, after five years of operations, the telco is considering selling some of its African subsidiaries, largely due to concerns around sustainability and profitability. Indeed, Orange is currently in talks with BhartiAirtel to acquire four subsidiaries in Francophone and Anglophone Africa (i.e., Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, and Sierra Leone), ITRealms learnt.

"The poor level of infrastructure, particularly in relation to electricity supply – is one of the key challenges that telcos encounter when it comes to deploying and maintaining top-quality network operations in Africa," said the director of IDC's telecoms program for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, Paul Black.

"This issue has consistently affected the profitability of telcos due to the increased levels of capital and operational expenditure they must undertake in building and maintaining a passive telecom infrastructure. Some global telcos have also failed to adapt and implement strategies that have succeeded in other regions. Indeed, the majority of global telcos have been unable to localize their global strategies to suit the unique operating environments of the African market."

"The operational challenges facing telcos in Africa have driven growth in the continent's third-party telecommunications infrastructure management business, and IDC expects the pressing need for telcos to reduce their costs and increase their levels of control to sustain growth in this space," continues Black.

"In order to increase the likelihood of success, telcos wishing to pursue growth and expansion in the African market must focus on developing enterprise products and services that appeal directly to the wants and needs of the local market, and to small and medium-sized businesses in particular. Telcos looking to enter Africa should tailor strategies that have succeeded in other regions to the specific operating environments they encounter in Africa, while the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) route should also be considered as a potential entry strategy," he concluded.

CyriacusNnaji/GEE

---

 [Remmy1]

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Enterprise Mobility to reach 80% MEA healthcare by 2017

ITRealms

Recent report published by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Health Insights has shown that enterprise mobility will have penetrated over 80 per cent of Middle East and Africa (MEA) healthcare organizations by 2017, reports ITRealms.

The report which is based on IDC's annual survey of the region's CIO community, ITRealms informs, indicates that corporate smart devices have already been deployed by over one-third of MEA healthcare organizations, with another 50 per cent planning to adopt them by 2017. Mobilizing enterprise applications, adopting mobile device management (MDM) solutions, and developing policies for enabling enterprise mobility are at the peak of priorities of the IT executives that are planning to embrace mobility.

The press release made available to ITRealms revealed that Information Technology (IT) security remains the greatest concern for healthcare CIOs, with the surveyed IT leaders identifying insider threats and staff-related issues as their most critical security challenges. These concerns are being further aggravated by insufficient budgets, the lack of mature security strategies, and a shortage of skilled IT security personnel.

The lead research analyst for Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMA) at IDC Health Insights, commenting on the report said, "The need for a mobile healthcare workforce will be one of the key drivers of mobile technology investments in MEA over the coming years. In line with the rapidly-rising importance of enterprise mobility within the MEA healthcare industry, mobile security will dominate investments in IT security solutions. Investments in MDM solutions will see particularly strong growth."

IDC Health Insights assists health businesses and IT leaders, as well as the suppliers that serve them, in making more effective technology decisions by providing accurate, timely, and insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Staffed by senior analysts with decades of industry experience, their research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the payer, provider and life sciences industries, ITRealms gathered.

For the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey region, ITRealms learnt, IDC retains a coordinated 

network of offices in Riyadh, Casablanca, Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg, and Istanbul, with a regional center in Dubai with an international perspective to provide a comprehensive understanding of markets in these dynamic regions, and also their market intelligence services are said to be unparalleled in depth, consistency, scope, and accuracy. IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey currently fields over 130 analysts, consultants, and conference associates across the region

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

 ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Return on Investment: US-DOE gives IDC 3-year grant

ITRealms:

 

The United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded the International Data Corporation (IDC) a three-year grant to conduct a full study of Returns on Investments (ROI) in high performance computing (HPC), reports ITRealms.

Confirming this to ITRealms, the Marketing Manager at IDC for Middle East and Africa, Anulekha Shetty, said that the full study follows IDC's successful completion of a 2013 pilot study on this topic for DOE.

In the pilot study, Shetty told ITRealms tahat IDC created the first economic models for predicting ROI associated with HPC, both in the form of innovation and financial returns. IDC tested these models on over 200 real-world examples and went through four iterations of the models.

For the full study, the marketing manager noted, IDC will use the economic models to quantify and classify ROI from thousands of examples IDC collects.

Shetty quoted the Earl Joseph, Programme Vice President, High Performance Computing at IDC as saying that the macroeconomic model depicts how HPC investments result in economic advancements.

The innovation index provides, according to Joseph, is a means for measuring and comparing innovation levels among nations based on their levels of applying HPC computing resources toward scientific, technological, and economic advancement.

"Nations and companies around the world increasingly recognize that HPC contributes enormously to science, industrial competitiveness, national security, and the quality of human life," said Joseph, who assured the full study will more deeply quantify these contributions in relation to the investments that made them possible.

The predictive macroeconomic models will take into consideration how research and development investments are currently justified and how results are measured in each of the government, academic, and industry market segments IDC has closely tracked for more than two decades, Joseph said.

Also commenting, Steve Conway, Research Vice President, High Performance Computing at IDC said they are creating tools and data that governments, universities, and companies can use to help make future HPC funding and purchasing decisions.

"Our goal for this grant award is to refine the predictive models to ensure that they correlate well with real-world practices and with a wide range of sample data representing real-world innovations," he declared.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)  @IDC
ITREALMS ... delivering news for ICT4D