Dubai outpacing India on tech growth

Dubai’s ICT sector is now growing faster than that of India and is gearing up to welcome a third telecoms operator, a leading industry expert has revealed to Arabian Business.

Matt Bross, chief technology officer of global telecoms giant BT Group said: “This region has tremendous wealth and if you look at Dubai’s projected growth in the ICT space, I think it’s going to be in excess of 12%, which is larger than the growth planned for India of around 10%.” Commenting on the UAE’s telecoms sector, that was recently liberalised with the launch of the second operator du, Bross added: “More choices in the UAE will stimulate expansion in the consumer, SME and corporate space in such a way that there will definitely be additional operators [coming here].”

Following a statement from an International Telecommunications Union official suggesting that a third telecom operator was ‘under formation’ in the UAE, the country’s Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) has denied any such deal.

BT is currently involved in the expansive 21st Century Network project that will make the UK the first country in the world to move its core telecoms infrastructure to a next-generation all IP-network.

Targeting huge investment into the Arab market, the group is looking to add to its list of 300 clients in the region, that includes Dubai Ports World and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.