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Johannesburg - South Africa is expected to have the the highest information, technology and communications (ICT) spend across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) regions in 2017.
This is according to the latest insights presented on Wednesday by International Data Corporation (IDC). South Africa is expected to lead the way among the regions with a $10.5bn spend in 2017 as technologies such as cloud, big data, social, and mobility become investment imperatives and dominate the ICT decision-making agenda.
Trailing behind SA, Saudi Arabia is expected to spend $7.5bn on ICT, with the UAE spending $6.2bn, and Turkey seeing a $5.6bn spend.
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The IDC was hosting its annual 'IDC Predictions' event in Dubai where it revealed that ICT spending in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) is forecast to top $243bn in 2017.
"There's no doubt that 2016 has been a particularly challenging year, characterised by currency volatility, weak oil and commodity prices, and a subsequent softening of government spend," said Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC's group vice president and regional managing director for META.
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"While these issues will continue to linger, we expect organisations to start pushing ahead with their planned technology investments as the 'wait-and-watch' period draws to a close.”
“Digital transformation initiatives will top the CIO agenda in 2017, as emerging technologies are increasingly leveraged in an effort to drive desired business outcomes.”
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“Innovation will be key in this regard, and we expect to see considerable disruption of the traditional ICT mix as a result," Lalchandani said.
IDC expects spending on software and IT services to grow at respective compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of 7.0% and 8.6% over the 2015 to 2020 period, far outstripping the 1.7% rate of growth anticipated for hardware.
It was further said that communications, finance, and government will be META's biggest-spending verticals in 2017, but healthcare, transportation, and utilities are expected to be the fastest growing over the five-year forecast period.
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