Digital subscriptions reshape consumer spending in Saudi Arabia
Category: Media, Gaming & Creator Economy
By Mira Sen
Published: 2026-07-07T10:31:14.000Z
Saudi households are quietly rewiring how they spend, and a growing slice of the monthly budget now disappears into recurring digital subscriptions. Streaming video sits at the heart of this shift, with the Kingdom's online streaming market forecast to more than double by 2034.
Saudi households are quietly rewiring how they spend, and a growing slice of the monthly budget now disappears into recurring digital subscriptions before anyone has bought a single physical thing. Streaming video sits at the heart of this shift, with the Kingdom's online streaming market worth around 113.9 million dollars in 2025 and forecast to more than double to roughly 292.6 million dollars by 2034. Fold in the wider digital video content market and the figures climb past two billion dollars, a scale that reflects just how normal it has become to pay a little every month for entertainment rather than a lot once for it. The foundations for this are almost absurdly strong. Internet penetration in Saudi Arabia sits close to 99 per cent and smartphone ownership is not far behind, underpinned by cheap, fast 4G and 5G networks that make streaming effortless anywhere. The population is young, constantly connected and, by several measures, among the most avid media consumers on the planet, with Saudis clocking some of the highest daily streaming times in the world at well over an hour and a half a day. That appetite has turned subscriptions from a novelty into a fixed cost, one that competes directly with older categories of discretionary spending. What is striking is the stacking. Rather than picking a single service, Saudi consumers increasingly juggle several at once, averaging around three video-on-demand platforms per person, and surveys show a strong majority intend to add more. The market they are spending in is crowded, led by the regional heavyweight Shahid alongside YouTube Premium, Netflix and StarzPlay, with Disney tipped to keep gaining ground. This is also where behavior is quietly evolving, since cost is the decisive lever, and many would happily consolidate into cheaper bundles while tolerating advertising if it keeps the price down, a dynamic pushing the whole sector towards packaged deals and ad-supported tiers. The regional picture explains both the intensity and the direction of travel. The Gulf carries one of the highest subscription rates anywhere, with the UAE narrowly ahead of Saudi Arabia on services per person, and that competition has drawn in serious local capital and consolidation, from the merger of OSN and Anghami to the Public Investment Fund's billion-dollar bet on the sports platform DAZN and a joint venture aimed at broadcasting sport across the Middle East. Regulation is shaping the market too, as the Kingdom's audio-visual media rules push licensing, content classification and cultural compliance, which in turn is fueling a wave of Arabic production. The upshot is a subscription economy maturing fast, reshaping Saudi wallets around recurring digital commitments that show little sign of loosening their grip.