Oracle will continue to strengthen its market share in the Middle East over the next year or more, said president Charles Phillips at GITEX on Thursday.

Charles Phillips said the region had been one of the company’s highest growth markets for several years and Oracle already had by far the leading market share in all areas of its business including database and applications software. He would not give figures on the level of growth.

“We have a higher market share here (in the Middle East) than in any other area in the world. It feels great seeing all the penetration of Oracle technology and how long people have been using it and how long they know it,” said Phillips.

“It’s been one of our highest growth regions for several years now and I don’t see any reason why that should change. It’s been really phenomenal what we’ve done here in all areas of our business.

“We have continued to gain market share and I don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t continue to happen over the next year or so.”Oracle has offices in more than 20 countries in the Middle East and its customers include 60 of the top real estate companies in the region, as well as all the leading airlines and telecommunications firms, according to Husam Dajani, senior vice president MEA for Oracle.

It has a product support centre in Egypt with more than 300 staff.

Phillips said Oracle was also gaining custom from banks in the region which were keen to enhance their IT systems.

Phillips said globally Oracle’s strong position meant it was well placed to ride out any turbulence from the economic downturn.

“World economies are always changing and whatever happens IT has to adjust. I do think if there’s any good news in this, relative to past downturns customers have not over bought, so don’t have three years of inventory and it’s not like the internet bubble where they bought more than they needed and we had to wait three years for them to burn it off.

“We are a very strong company, the number one enterprise software company, and when people get more conservative, they tend to want to be with the largest guy, so it will be easier for us to hire people and attract talent and customers will gravitate towards the safest ship.”