{"id":22312,"date":"2023-03-21T11:20:25","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T11:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/?p=22312"},"modified":"2023-03-22T07:20:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T07:20:07","slug":"sale-of-smartphones-to-increase-in-gcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/2023\/03\/21\/sale-of-smartphones-to-increase-in-gcc\/","title":{"rendered":"Sale of smartphones to increase in GCC"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n40.4 million smartphone<\/a> units will be sold in the Middle East this year, a report by Canalys Research showed.<\/p>\n

This will amount to a six per cent growth in the number of smartphones sold, Canalys said.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, which is the largest market in the region, will experience a nine per cent expansion, thanks to an increase in foreign direct investments.<\/p>\n

A shift from a conservative to an open economy has also helped, Canalys said.<\/p>\n

The UAE’s smartphone market is anticipated to expand by six per cent as a result of the nation’s rapid growth in non-oil sectors like real estate, tourism, and trade.<\/p>\n

Kuwait and Qatar are predicted to witness a slight growth, in line with the rising oil prices and the Fifa World Cup<\/a> last year, which boosted travel and retail sales.<\/p>\n

Demand for smartphones globally had dwindled in 2022, slowing by 12 per cent.<\/p>\n

This translated to a 0.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter decline in the GCC.<\/p>\n

In terms of value, the GCC smartphone market was worth $2.09 billion in Q4 2021, a decrease of 4.5 per cent QoQ, while the feature phone market totaled $11.16 million, down 25.9 per cent.<\/p>\n

The decline was attributed to rising inflation<\/a>, declining consumer demand and and growing inventory.<\/p>\n

Sanyam Chaurasia, analyst at Canalys told Gulf Business<\/em>: \u201cMiddle East markets witnessed a post-pandemic shift in consumer and commercial dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe year 2023 will bring a favourable business environment, supported by buoyant energy prices, recycling of the funds from oil towards reform programmes in each country and creating space for further intra-GCC business investment,” Mr Chaurasia said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The smartphone market in the Middle East is expected to grow by six per cent this year, a report by Canalys Research showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":22313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[160,4042,3986,2683,3966],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22312"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22357,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22312\/revisions\/22357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}