Saudi technology company ZONE plans to invest $10 million in Egypt over three years, accounting for one-third of its $30 million regional expansion budget, while aiming to double its local engineering workforce to around 200 by the end of 2027 as it pursues government and private-sector digital transformation contracts.
Chief Executive Farid Hussein outlined the investment plans during Cairo ICT 2026, telling Asharq Bloomberg that Egypt could contribute between 25% and 30% of ZONE’s total revenue over the coming three years. The company has not disclosed its current Egyptian revenue or the value of contracts underpinning that projection.
The investment marks a shift in ZONE’s Egyptian operations, which have primarily supplied technical expertise to projects in Saudi Arabia and other regional markets. The Riyadh-based company now intends to serve Egyptian customers directly while expanding the country’s role in software development, technical support and digital service exports.
ZONE plans to allocate the $10 million to recruitment, operational capacity, adapting its proprietary software to Egyptian regulations and financing its share of selected projects structured around public-private partnerships and revenue-sharing agreements.
The company currently employs more than 100 engineers in Egypt and aims to increase that number to approximately 200 by December 2027, expanding its capabilities in software development, systems integration, technical support and consulting.
Hussein said ZONE was in advanced negotiations with government agencies, professional associations and other institutions, and had submitted technical and financial proposals for digital transformation projects. No values or implementation schedules have been disclosed for those prospective contracts.
In the private sector, the company said it had secured contracts including a healthcare management and enterprise resource planning project associated with medical tourism. It is also pursuing additional hospitality and hospital management projects, although the identities of the clients and contract values were not disclosed.
The company’s target sectors include government services, healthcare, property management, hospitality, financial-sector compliance, education and manufacturing. Its software portfolio spans enterprise resource planning, hospital management, digital archiving, business analytics and artificial intelligence applications.
According to an internal market assessment cited by Hussein, ZONE estimates Egypt’s digital transformation market at $4.4 billion in the first year of its projections, with annual growth of 15%. It identifies approximately $1.75 billion in annual demand within the sectors directly addressed by its products.
ZONE aims to capture 0.25% of that addressable market in its first year of expansion, increasing to 0.5% in the second year and 1% by the third. These figures represent the company’s commercial targets rather than independently verified forecasts or contracted revenue.
Hussein expects ZONE’s Egyptian operations to reach break-even by the end of their second year of expansion. The company also aims to increase the proportion of Egyptian revenue generated from software licences, subscriptions, recurring operations and revenue-sharing arrangements from 40% in the first year to 60% by the third.
A central element of the strategy is ZONE’s willingness to finance selected digital infrastructure projects in return for a share of operating revenue. Depending on the contract, the company could fund and operate a system for an agreed period before transferring ownership to the client, reducing the institution’s upfront capital requirements.
The model could help ZONE compete for projects where public-sector budgets are constrained, but its returns would depend on financing costs, contractual terms, service adoption and the revenue generated after implementation.
Founded in Riyadh in 2003, ZONE operates across several Middle Eastern markets, including Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Libya and Syria. The company is pursuing additional opportunities in Syria and Libya, where Hussein said digital transformation partnerships and projects were under discussion.
ZONE also expects to be ready for a potential listing on Saudi Arabia’s main stock market by late 2028 or early 2029, although no formal offering terms or timetable have been announced.
For Egypt, the proposed investment could support skilled technology employment, locally adapted software and exports of digital services, while introducing additional private financing into digital infrastructure projects. The scale of those benefits will depend on the actual deployment of the planned $10 million, the conversion of negotiations into signed contracts and the company’s ability to meet its recruitment and revenue targets.
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