Retail sales in Saudi Arabia to reach $133 bln in 2023: report

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to continue to dominate the retail sales in the GCC, cumulatively accounting for 77 percent of the total sales by 2023, consultancy firm Alpen Capital said in a recent report.

The Kingdom accounted for $113 billion (44.6 percent) of the total Gulf retail spending last year followed by the UAE at $81 billion (32 percent), Bahrain at $5.57 billion (2.2 percent), Kuwait at $16.7 billion (6.6 percent) and Oman at $13.67 billion (5.4 percent).

Retail sales in Saudi Arabia are expected to reach to $132.7 billion, while UAE will see sales at $104.1 billion by 2023, the report noted.

Overall, the GCC retail industry will grow four percent from $253.2 billion last year to $308 billion by 2023, driven by increase in population, tourism, per capita income and hosing of events such as Expo 2020.

Annualized growth in retail sales in the GCC nations is predicted to range between 2.2 percent and 5.1 percent, the report said.