UAE & Türkiye lead META tech infrastructure growth
Mon, 9th Nov 2026 (Today)
CONTEXT said the UAE and Türkiye led technology infrastructure growth in the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa in the third quarter, while Saudi Arabia remained below last year's level.
Regional distribution sales data showed stronger revenue in servers and enterprise storage, but the improvement was uneven across markets and product groups. Saudi distribution revenue fell about 9% year on year in the quarter, even as some hardware segments improved in September.
Among the five META markets tracked by CONTEXT, Saudi Arabia was the only one in September to post total distribution revenue below its 2025 monthly average. Its revenue index stood at 94.8, compared with 144.9 in the UAE, with 100 representing each market's average monthly revenue in 2025.
The figures point to a split between markets where infrastructure spending is broadening and Saudi Arabia, where demand remains concentrated in selected categories. September improved on August in Saudi Arabia, but the increase was smaller than the seasonal rises recorded in both 2024 and 2025.
Saudi shift
The strongest Saudi categories in September were disk storage, computing components and mobile computing. Revenue in those segments was 66%, 42% and 38% above their respective 2025 monthly averages.
Server computing was 12% above its baseline, while desktop computing was broadly flat. Software and licences remained 16% below their 2025 average, networking systems were 9% below, and warranties and services were about 48% below.
The gap between stronger hardware demand and weaker spending on software, networking and services suggests many projects in Saudi Arabia are still at an earlier procurement stage. Large enterprise and public sector deployments often begin with core hardware purchases before software contracts and longer-term support agreements follow.
"While the headline figures suggest an uneven recovery, the underlying data reveals a complex transition," said Dylan Chadha of CONTEXT.
"The UAE and Türkiye are experiencing robust, broad-based infrastructure growth. In contrast, Saudi Arabia's surge in core hardware like disk storage and computing components indicates foundational investments are being made now, which will likely trigger software and services spending in subsequent quarters," Chadha said.
Server demand
Across the wider region, infrastructure demand strengthened through the second half of the year, led by the UAE and Türkiye. Servers and storage were the main contributors to that growth.
AI-capable servers accounted for 12% of server revenue through distribution in the third quarter, up from 11% in the second quarter and 5% in the first.
The third-quarter share remained below the 30% recorded in the same period of 2025, when larger transactions lifted the comparison base. Even so, the quarter-on-quarter increase through 2026 indicates a broader spread of AI-related server investment across enterprise customers.
That marks a shift from a market driven by occasional large purchases. Instead, the data points to more regular adoption of AI server systems in mainstream infrastructure plans across the META region.
"The normalisation of AI server sales is actually a very positive indicator," Chadha said.
"Rather than relying on large, one-off deals as we saw in 2025, we are now tracking a steady quarter-on-quarter acceleration, from 5% in Q1 to 12% in Q3. This shows that everyday enterprises across the META region are actively integrating AI into their standard infrastructure planning," he said.
CONTEXT tracks technology channels and distribution across Europe, the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa.