Mobile phone shipments into the Gulf Cooperation Council states are expected to show a growth only in 2019 and 2020 after three years of decline.
The market witnessed a growth in 2015, followed by a fall of 22.5 per cent year on year in 2016 and 0.4 per cent decline in 2017 to 26.2 million units.
Kafil Merchant, research analyst at International Data Corporation Middle East, Africa and Turkey, told Gulf News that the GCC market is expected to show a decline of 4.3 per cent year on year in 2018.
The key markets of the UAE and Saudi Arabia are tipped to suffer year on year declines of 8.2 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively. The GCC market is expected to see a growth of 2.8 per cent in 2019 and 9.7 per cent in 2020.
“The region’s mobile phone market is clearly going through a challenging period due to macroeconomic conditions such as weak oil prices and Saudiasation. Saudi contributes around 70 per cent to the total shipments,” he said.