Saudi Arabia ranks sixth among G20 in ICT market, says CITC Governor

Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi, Governor of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), said the Saudi telecommunications market is one of the fastest-growing markets at the level of G20, occupying the sixth place among G20 countries by market value.

The advancement was driven by the Vision 2030 incentives and its role in accelerating the pace of growth and innovation.

In his opening speech during the ICT Indicators Forum, Al-Tamimi said that the Kingdom has also achieved the highest level of progress and achievement, through the amount of frequency spectrum allocated to mobile communication services globally, thus ranking second among the G20 countries.

He highlighted the strength of the infrastructure of the telecommunications sector in the Kingdom, as the average mobile internet speed reached 179.9 Mbps by the end of 2021, an increase of 1,781%, while the global average reached 71.3 Mbps. The coverage of the fiber-optic network reached more than of 3.5 million homes, he added.

Al-Tamimi also stated that the frequency spectrum allocated to mobile communications services exceeded 1,110 (IMT) MHz, with the percentage of coverage of the Internet of things technology for urban areas reaching 95%.

The sector is working on adopting innovative experiences, as the first experiment in the world to provide coverage of 5G networks via high-altitude platforms (5G HAPS) was successfully conducted. Moreover, the latest generation of WiFi-6e technologies was launched to become the first country in the world in terms of total frequency spectrum, the top official added.