The GCC is also making strides in its development of smart cities and the number of new smart city greenfield developments in the GCC will double within the next two to three years. This follows the launch of six entirely new, master-planned smart city developments in the GCC over the past decade. Going forward strategy consultants expect the majority of new city sub-developments will incorporate at least some element of “smart” infrastructure. The region’s smart city growth will largely be driven by developments in the government planning, administration, and operations area, backed by significant GCC government investments in e-government and mobile services.
The sharp increase in mobile government (m-gov) services development in the region is also fueling the rise of m-gov smartphone applications across the Middle East, with Deloitte predicting that the number will surpass 500 apps by 2016.
Other predictions explored in the report include:
Internet of Things
The Middle East region is estimated to currently represent about 2-3 percent of the global IoT enterprise market. As such, around 25 million IoT devices are anticipated by Deloitte to be shipped to the Middle East region in 2015, leading to an installed base of around 70 million IoT devices. This would likely be worth around $250 million in IoT-specific hardware, with revenues of around $1.7 billion in associated IoT services.
3D printing in the Middle East
The Middle East region is a relatively immature market, representing a small fraction of the global 3D printing market, but is expected to grow quickly and follow global growth trends, where Deloitte predicts adoption to be driven by enterprises in the region.
Short-form versus long-form viewing trends
Total time spent watching short-form video online in the Middle East in 2015 will represent under three percent of all video watched locally on all screens. On average, the region’s viewers will consume an estimated 545 million hours per month, of short-form video (5.5 percent of global short-form estimates) in addition to watching over 23 billion hours per month of traditional long-form television (about 5 percent of global long-form viewership).
