MEA SaaS Market Size and Forecast by Offering, Deployment Model, Organization Size, Subscription Model, and End User Industry: 2019-2033

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Industry Assessment Overview

Industry Findings: Regulatory harmonisation and capacity investment shaped buying decisions across both African and Middle East markets in recent years. In Oct-2024 East African Community ministers advanced a regional data-governance framework to harmonise protections and streamline cross-border research and education procurement. That policy movement increased demand for standardised compliance artifacts and pre-approved contracting vehicles among public research institutions and regional agencies. Buyers subsequently required clearer DPIA outputs, export-impact mappings, and audit-ready telemetry as part of initial commercial responses. Architects reacted by segmenting regulated datasets into dedicated domains and by implementing consent-aware pipelines that produce provable lineage. Suppliers that publish harmonised compliance templates and partner-led delivery bundles made faster progress through institutional procurement gates, while providers lacking regionally consistent artefacts faced extended technical and legal reviews.

Industry Player Insights: Prominent companies shaping the region’s competitive tone include MTN Group, Vodacom, Orange, and IBM etc. MTN signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei in Feb-2024 to establish a joint innovation lab focused on 5G, cloud and AI use cases, which accelerated carrier-backed propositions for edge-enabled SaaS in mining and utilities and pushed enterprise buyers to prioritise telco–cloud consortia that could offer end-to-end SLAs. Vodacom partnered with AWS and announced large-scale upskilling and cloud-acceleration initiatives in Nov-2024, prompting systems integrators and SaaS partners to productise managed AWS offerings and lowering barriers for large enterprise migrations. These vendor moves shifted shortlists toward suppliers that combine local network SLAs, hyperscaler partnership credentials, and partner-delivered migration playbooks.