Smart Cities put the KSA on the map

AV Magazine

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In industrial, educational, resorts, financial or residential, new opportunities are beginning to materialise for the entire AV industry in the KSA, says Adrian Pennington.

The Middle East boasts innovation, resources and a favourable trade location with fast-growing and high-yield markets. The AV market specifically is on track to grow at one of the world’s fastest rates, increasing by 76 per cent from $1.57 billion in 2012 to $2.76 billion this year, according to InfoComm.

“The growing digital native generation is driving Middle Eastern organisations to raise the bar on AV, resulting in an increase in investment of the highest quality technology – from HD displays to projectors, digital signage, lighting, sound systems, media recording, streaming and webcasting technology, virtual check-in kiosks and security systems,” reports Eleuterio Fernandes, MEA sales director, Exterity.

Stability

Despite political turmoil in many areas, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has remained quite stable and investors view it as an attractive place to do business, largely due to economic diversification, market liberalisation and a growing private sector.

“Construction and oil and gas remain the centre of investment and have contributed to the strong growth that has consistently been taking place in the education, hospitality, healthcare, transport and military sectors,” says Fernandes.

Through its visualisation and 3D capabilities along with projection, the oil and gas sector is one that Christie is well known in, supplying its products for a range of environments from meeting rooms, training rooms and auditoriums to visualisation and exploration centres.

The country’s Eastern Province hosts the energy, oil and gas developments that are the large drivers of AV, while the western region reaps the benefits of seasonal upticks in AV activity, particularly during the months leading up to ‘Hajj’, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah). The Saudi government mandates particular technical decorum requirements for all commercial businesses such as malls, hotels and airports.

“Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman has recently announced a vision for the future – known as Vision 2030 – where Saudi is looking at ways to reduce its reliance on oil. There are many facets to the vision including the improvement of social health and well-being, determined and long term economic reform and prosperity and its ability to draw upon its culture, heritage and importance to the global and Islamic community as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” says Joe Graziano, Christie’s regional sales manager. Saudi intends to increase its Umrah visitors alone from eight million to 30 million by 2030. “This will need hotels, infrastructure, a more effective and efficient transport system, healthcare facilities, places to eat and visit,” he adds.

“Retail space is expanding and retailers (local and international brands) are entering the market and competing hard to grab market share and increase customer experience so the opportunities are there,” reports Fawzi Mushtaha, country manager – KSA and Bahrain, NEC.

“The Saudi government is keen to attract companies to operate in the Kingdom,” states Clear-Com’s regional sales manager, Samer Mouwanes. Clear-Com works through Saudi distributor HavPro for the live market and systems integrators such as First Gulf Company, Saudi Media Systems and Al Faysaliyah. “There are opportunities for growth and large steps forward have been made,” adds Mouwanes. “However, there is still a lot more to be done in order for companies to make further investments in the region, especially as neighbouring Abu Dhabi and Dubai are advanced in infrastructure and much more open to western culture.”

Unsurprisingly, the Kingdom is very conservative. Music cannot be played in public areas, such as restaurants and shopping malls. However, many high end residences have installed their own private entertainment facilities with extensive state-of-the-art AV equipment, according to Mouwanes.

Economic pressures

Recent economic pressures have “definitely impacted the market” according to Sennheiser’s Mig Cardamone, sales and marketing director, Middle East. Spending has been curtailed especially in AV and entertainment: “Sales discussions have to be focused around the tangible benefits and the long term positive impact of the implementation.”

“Saudi always used to account for 30 per cent of sales in the Middle East but when the oil prices dropped heavily, the market came under pressure and sales went down,” confirms Crestron’s regional director, Vincent Philippo. “Recently we see signs the market is picking up again.”

AV education

Naturally, AV expertise varies significantly from country to country within the Middle East: “Education in the region is improving all the time and Saudi has some of the largest and most modern learning facilities anywhere in the world – awash with projection, flat panel displays, processing, collaboration tools, LED displays and every other AV component you can imagine,” maintains Christie’s Graziano.

“In Saudi, we emphasise education, both for partners as well as customers,” says Cardamone. Sennheiser conducts regular training days and ‘Sound Academy’ sessions. “This is to raise awareness about the kinds of solutions that are available in the market and the various benefits they can offer addressing challenges that might sometimes be overlooked. We also ensure that we cater to both end users and consultants as well as channel players, rental companies and installers.”

The biggest local vertical Crestron sells to is education. Indeed 90 per cent of Saudi universities boast Crestron in the classrooms. Education has been earmarked as a focal point in the country’s last budget, according to Sennheiser, with a number of institutions using advanced AV solutions to create a more dynamic and modern learning environment.

The Kingdom’s 94,000 mosques use the latest digital audio systems for the reproduction and broadcast of daily prayers. A notable Sennheiser project is at the Masjid al-Haram where the firm undertook a complete upgrade of the Mecca Mokabariah facility’s microphones to the latest digital models.

According to Hassan Alajmi, managing director, Labiib Solutions the most challenging issue is human resources and education in the industry. “AV is not taught in schools and the public doesn’t have a great understanding on the quality of different AV systems,” he says. “While we sell and install some of the best products and AV services in the world, the public is yet to understand the true difference between a poor and high quality installation.”

He elaborates: “One of the most important things to ensure in any project in Saudi Arabia is to understand who your client is and what their needs and exceptions are,” says Alajmi. “In Saudi Arabia, the young people make up a large majority of the population, but the money is with the elders so there can be a conflict of interests between the ‘money payer’ and the younger generation. It is important to find the right balance between the different clientele and understand whose needs you are meeting. In addition, Saudi Arabia is a very social country so many companies rely on word of mouth and good feedback to source new work and projects. It is therefore vital to provide outstanding customer service to all clients.”

Similar to the rest of the Middle East region, cultural sensibilities are important, notes Marco Fornier, regional sales manager, Barco. “The real key is to be close to the customer all the time, especially after sale.”

Barco has been present in Saudi for over 30 years basing an office in Riyadh since 2015. “Our go-to-market approach has been to establish long term relationships with trusted and reputable local partners to provide proactive support,” says Fornier.

The KSA’s sheer size presents a logistical challenge for sales and support, pre and post sales services.  ”Cultures vary from one area to another and it is important to manage knowledge transfer and to educate the clients and channels. It is challenging given the scale and the deployable resource,” advises Mushtaha.

The Kingdom is investing billions of dollars to build four new ‘Economic Cities,’ referred to as Smart Cities. The move is an attempt to diversify by moving GDP away from hydrocarbons (oil accounts for 94 per cent of the country’s export revenue).

Smart cities

Smart Cities are expected to support this trend, as well as create a knowledge economy – one that will provide KSA’s younger population with the skills required for professional and senior-level jobs. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) expects the strategy to contribute US$150 billion to GDP and create more than one million jobs by 2020.

Of the four projects Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) is one of the most ambitious construction projects in the world. It is hoped the $100 billion (€89 billion) city will be a magnet for global business and tourism to rival Dubai, home to two million people and one of the world’s biggest deep water ports intended to compete with China for manufacturing and India for logistics. It is not expected to be complete until 2035.

Opportunities for AV business at KAEC and others may, however, be being hoovered up by “low budget Chinese brands” in Philippo’s words.

Mobile communications firm Nokia and local mobile network operator Zain KSA are joining forces to help transform Jeddah into a Smart City. They will apply advanced networking technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT) and the cloud to connect and manage a wide array of devices, vehicles, homes and applications. Use of these technologies is intended to improve municipal services, enhance the business climate in Jeddah and create a better quality of life for the city’s nearly three million residents.

The plan includes the rollout of 5G, the fifth generation mobile network which promises speeds up to 1,000 times faster than current 4G networks and with negligible latency.

Tourism

Saudi Arabia has a distinctive tourism landscape and Makkah is at the core of this for both local and international travellers. Hajj visit numbers are expected to exceed five million by 2025. Infrastructure under development, such as the expansion of Jeddah’s airport which is expected to increase capacity to 80 million passengers by 2035, will further boost pilgrim numbers. KAEC is also being developed as a major religious tourist destination – targeting the 10 million Saudis that go abroad each year to enjoy world destinations.

“There are plans to make the Kingdom a tourist destination in the next decade which will bring more diverse business for the AV industry,” says Mouwanes, citing theme park installation opportunities.

Exterity says it has been particularly busy in and around Jeddah – a major settling ground for tourists and visitors during Hajj – with the developments of over 30 hospitals and 40 luxury hotels.

Case study: Fair mapping

Held recently in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, the International Book Fair attracted 440+ international publishers from 25 countries. Running throughout the show was a spectacular projection mapping installation measuring 165m wide by 11.5m tall – the work of BrightStar Events a local event engineering and management company and requiring three Christie Roadie HD+35K and eight Roadster HD20K units positioned at 15m intervals opposite a pavilion structure.

The projected content was inspired by the history of Arabian calligraphy. The complete show ran for an hour with a 3D mapping segment that ran for almost six minutes.

Case study: University solves reverb

The Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University enrolls 35,000 students in a campus that spans across Saudi Arabia’s capital city. Most of the university’s multiple lecture halls and auditoriums on both the men’s and women’s campuses struggled with intelligibility and reverberation issues, so a massive retrofit of the school’s sound reinforcement systems was called for. Spain-based engineering and architectural firm TYPSA recommended systems based around Renkus-Heinz ICONYX digitally steerable line array loudspeaker systems. Local Riyadh contractor/integrator Baud Telecom Company was the installing contractor.