Business process as a service (BPaaS), the largest segment of the cloud services market in MENA, is expected to reach $261.3 million in 2016, a 6 percent increase from 2015 (see Table 1). The cloud management and security services market is the fastest growth segment, with 2016 revenue on pace to grow 27.5 percent from 2015.Software as a service (SaaS) is expected to grow 26.6 percent in 2016 to reach a revenue total of $210 million.

"We continue to see a shift from legacy IT services to cloud-based services. Organizations are pursuing a cloud first strategy driving market growth," said Sid Nag, research director at Gartner.

"The growing interest in the reduction of data center build-outs, being replaced by the public cloud, will drive faster growth of the cloud market now and in the future," said Mr. Nag said.

"The growth in cloud management and security is a testimony that cloud related services, in addition to the core cloud services, are critical to cloud adoption. Organizations will look for increased automation and management of these cloud assets, as well as focus on the security aspects of consuming public cloud."