Monsha’at, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises, has released its latest quarterly SME Monitor, which highlights recent developments in the Kingdom’s dynamic SME ecosystem, from an increase in commercial registrations to a special chapter on its burgeoning publishing industry, which now has over 500 local publishing houses bringing Saudi and other Arabic-language authors to new audiences.
The report shows that since the launch of the Literature, Publishing, and Translation Commission in 2020, the Kingdom’s publishing industry has seen growth across a number of key metrics, from the number of publishing houses to the 2.2 million visitors that attended Saudi book fairs in 2023. Notably, the Riyadh Book Fair, the commission’s flagship event, featured works from 30+ countries and 2,000 publishing houses, helping attract over a million visitors and delivering $7.5 million in book sales.
The chapter also highlights key initiatives by the commission to empower Saudi SMEs and entrepreneurs become better literary agents, forge literary partnerships with civil society and local cafés, learn and adopt best practices from international publishing houses, and develop better professional print and digital-facing publishing skills.
As a key enabler of the local publishing sector, efforts by Saudi Arabia’s Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission have been key to this progress, the report shows. “The commission has launched five business accelerators that have benefitted over a hundred SME projects whose average revenues increased by 20 percent and created 115 new permanent jobs,” said its CEO Dr. Mohammed Hasan Alwan. “Thanks to 54 public and private partnerships, the Kingdom has been able to attract regional and global publishing houses to the Saudi market to enrich local production, enable diverse experiences, and enhance the local market’s professionalism and competitiveness.”
In addition to its coverage of Saudi publishing trends, the latest SME Monitor also has a special section on global developments in the SME publishing space. These include new business models serving the more than 1 billion ebook consumers around the world, from the huge growth in digital, audiobooks, and direct-to-consumer subscription models to self-publishing and do-it-yourself models that SMEs stand to benefit from.
In its survey of broader SME developments across Saudi Arabia, the report also reveals a notable uptick in commercial registrations in Q3 2024, a key indicator of the country’s robust entrepreneurial landscape. In addition to a quarter-over-quarter growth, the 135,909 new registrations marked a significant year-over-year increase. Almost half of these registrations came from female entrepreneurs, and nearly 40 percent were from young business owners, highlighting the extensive impact of the Kingdom’s diversification efforts.
Thanks to the variety of enablement, financing, franchising, innovation, and business development programs offered by Monsha’at, more than 25,000 Saudi SMEs also benefitted from the Kingdom’s chief SME enabler in Q3 2024, the report shows. Saudi Arabia’s VC funding ecosystem continued to lead MENA through the first three quarters of 2024, with $509 million deployed to Saudi-based startups over 104 deals in the first nine months of the year.
