A new Niko Partners report, which the platform published in January, has a detailed analysis of the Middle Eastern gaming market. This enabled the company to make a forecast where it indicated that the market would grow by as much as 56% to $2.8 billion by 2026 (the current figure is $1.8 billion).

A side note: The mobile gaming market gets $1.5 billion and 1.1 billion downloads per week

The Niko Partners report also predicts that the total number of gamers in the MENA region will also grow. While the number now stands at 67.4 million users, in 3 years it will be close to almost 88 million. This is a high increase for such a short period of time. Right now, the most gamers come from Egypt, which has 58.2% of the total number, followed by Saudi Arabia (31.1%) and the United Arab Emirates (10.7%). However, the rate of return is completely different: 58.7% of the total financial turnover in the gaming market belongs to Saudi Arabia, followed by the Emirates, and Egypt has the least (with the highest number of players).

Niko Partners report
Detailed timetable with analysis of three countries

Equally interesting is the fact that 73% of all gamers in the market are involved in cybersports in one way or another: watching tournaments, playing games, or participating in amateur or professional tournaments.

In fact, Niko Partners’ report explicitly suggests that the Middle Eastern gaming market will grow to colossal proportions in the next three years, which in turn will enable it to compete with giants such as China or South Asia, as well as open up new horizons and audiences for game developers.

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