The rise of digital industries in the GCC and wider MENA region: what’s next for the B2B opportunity?

During June–August 2025, GSMA Intelligence surveyed more than 850 enterprises across 10 vertical sectors in eight MENA countries to gain insight into their digital transformation.

This formed part of a wider global survey covering 5,320 enterprises in 32 countries, including both developed and developing countries. The eight MENA countries surveyed comprise three from the GCC (Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and five from the wider MENA region (Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and Türkiye).

The GCC leads on digital transformation

Looking at the overall digital transformation score of the 15 developed countries surveyed, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in the top seven. This confirms the GCC plays an important role as a leading (and benchmark) region in the digital transformation of enterprises and industries, offering a favourable environment for developing and scaling new technologies and innovations.

Among the 17 developing countries surveyed, Türkiye is in the top five on digital transformation and Morocco is in the top 10.

Across MENA, the top three vertical sectors leading on digital transformation are financial services, retail, and the manufacturing and industrial sectors. The agriculture, forestry and fishing sector is at the bottom of the ranking. In general, all vertical sectors show eagerness to accelerate digital transformation but investment budgets vary.

Investing for growth: 10% of revenues

There is a solid consensus among enterprises in the GCC and wider MENA region that digital transformation brings multiple benefits, with enhanced security the top objective in five of the eight countries surveyed. Beyond security, revenue-related objectives are deemed slightly more important than cost-related objectives.

To capture the benefits, MENA enterprises will spend 10% of their revenues on digital transformation during 2025–2030. As expected, the bigger the enterprise, the higher the spend. At the same time, MENA enterprises expect a 200% RoI on digital transformation spend (aligned to the global average).

AI and connectivity will be the leading areas of spend

This comes as no surprise given the consensus among GCC and MENA enterprises that AI will have a big impact across several business areas with enhanced security and productivity/efficiency gains leading.

Across MENA, most enterprises undertaking digital transformation already use generative AI (genAI), but only 39% are currently making advanced use of it, leaving room for growth. Globally, Qatar and the UAE are among the countries where enterprises make the highest advanced use of genAI.

5G is seen as important for digital transformation in all MENA countries and sectors.

On 5G use cases (for example FWA, IoT, network APIs, private networks) and new network technologies such as edge and slicing, GCC enterprises lead on expectations of impact. This reflects recent progress made by operators and vendors on driving the deployment of standalone 5G networks and associated capabilities.

Of the seven operators to have launched 5G-Advanced (5G-A) networks worldwide (as of September 2025), two are from the GCC. In addition to that, 11 operators from the six GCC countries have announced plans to launch 5G-A, bringing the total to 13 and confirming the GCC’s ambitions to lead on the network technology.

Technology integration more important than ever

GCC and MENA enterprises work with a diverse range of suppliers for digital transformation technologies and solutions, including operators.

Diversity of choice is good for enterprises, but also suppliers as it allows the development of long-term partnerships within the ICT value chain. Generalists (hyperscalers and telecoms network/equipment vendors) tend to be the preferred partners for digital transformation – unsurprisingly, as they boast global reach, larger sales teams and more comprehensive/integrated portfolios of B2B services and capabilities.

As cost of implementation and complexity of tech integration (highly interrelated) are key deployment challenges faced by enterprises in MENA, the role of the tech orchestrator will become even more important (and demanded) in the future, providing new opportunities for suppliers, including operators.

Three B2B opportunities for operators

To capture a growing piece of the B2B opportunity, GCC and MENA operators can pursue three strategies: targeting growth beyond connectivity either by focusing on selected technologies/services or through a cross-service horizontal approach (the latter involves a tech orchestrator role); or moving one step higher to be the go-to, long-term digital transformation partners for enterprises.

In the study 18% of MENA enterprises said operators would be their first or second preferred supplier if they could purchase all the digital transformation technologies/solutions from one single supplier – this represents a solid starting point.

The three strategies are not mutually exclusive. Moving up the ICT value chain (beyond connectivity) and playing a tech orchestration role are key to forging long-term relationships with other suppliers and enterprise customers.

For operators, B2B messaging should increasingly highlight how the use of technology can support enterprises’ objectives while enhancing security (ideally pointing to successful examples of how early enterprise adopters of 5G and AI in the region are achieving tangible benefits).

It is also important to educate enterprise customers on the benefits of digital transformation and tailor the B2B strategies and services to the specific needs of vertical sectors as priorities, requirements and spending budgets differ.