KSA, UAE, and Egypt to Spawn Billions in Gaming Revenue by 2025
Market research and consulting firm, iko Partners, publicized a new report unveiling that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt’s gaming market valuation will reach $3.14 billion by 2025.
Specializing in video games, esports, and streaming, iko presented data around the Middle East’s gaming sector state is typically confined to the limitations and capacities of the gaming companies.
“The report builds on a comprehensive market model and five-year forecast through 2025 by games segment, key data on game publishers, games rankings, growth drivers, and trends,” Daniel Ahmad, Senior analyst at Niko Partners, said on Twitter.
The report incorporates detailed information on e-sports, product distribution, payments, financial transaction events, regulations, and qualitative analysis on gamer demand, spending, and behavior, as well as data around gaming behavior extracted from a survey of 3,000 gamers.
In 2021, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)-3 games revenue was $1.76 billion, with expectations to reach $3.14 billion by the end of 2025, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to hit 13.8 percent.
In parallel, during that same year, MENA-3 gamers hit 65.32 million users, with the gaming industry in the region aiming to cover 85.76 million in 2025.
As for the influential aspect these countries have on the gaming industry in the MENA region, the Kingdom is considered the gaming epicenter concerning Arabic-speaking nations surrounding it. This is mainly driven by the KSA’s ability to balance the size of targeted populations with accelerated spending capacity to generate a higher revenue margin.
The UAE, on the other hand, is the representative of smaller states in the Gulf region, where the population is predominantly expatriates despite the Arabic language being the official language. The language barrier, in this case, has presented itself as one factor that could fluctuate the UAE’s efforts in rising to the top in the gaming industry.
Egypt has also manifested itself as one of the leading gaming markets in the region, driven by its actively competitive gaming community.
The MENA region’s population is one of the main mechanisms of the escalating growth in the gaming industry, with expectations to reach an increased spending per-users, more government support across games and esports platforms, with a new wave of video games to enter the market.
The gaming sector is welcoming massive support from the UAE and KSA as they introduce new guidelines and policies to further the gaming wave, encouraging localization, local game development, new studios, and opening offices in their countries for some of the most prominent gaming companies, as well hosting esports tournaments.