Infrastructure Development and Economic Diversification Will Open Opportunities in the Road Freight Transportation Market
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are emerging as highly competitive countries in terms of road infrastructure and government initiatives to improve the same. The GCC countries have a large pipeline of road infrastructure development projects in the pipeline, boosting the sector. Emerging technologies like driverless trucks and platooning are on the horizon.
Despite being in the developmental stages, these technologies have the potential to be transformative. Among the GCC nations, Saudi Arabia's logistics market is the largest, accounting for nearly 40% of the total market size in the region. The full truck load (FTL) and less than truck load (LTL) segment currently constitute almost half of the total road freight market in the GCC and will continue to rise in the coming years due the region's strategic position and its free trade zones and economic cities. FTL constitutes the major share in the GCC road freight segment at 30% owing to high volume and large ticket size of orders and consignments.
The GCC road freight market is highly fragmented with a low level of technology adoption and efficiency in operations.
The density of the road network in the region is low, driver qualifications also do not meet the benchmarks set by western counterparts. Major drivers for the road freight market includes increasing technology adoption such as digital freight platforms, increasing demand for fleet management solutions, road infrastructure development plans, and eCommerce growth, increasing growth in intra-GCC trade, the introduction of new road freight regulations and tax reforms (VAT), and the development of rail networks, free trade zones, and economic cities in the region.
Online freight marketplaces, eCommerce, and digitization is expected to streamline the road freight market in the GCC countries. Strategic partnerships with a focus on horizontal and vertical integration are increasingly being adopted by various service providers.
The road freight market in the GCC countries is forecasted to grow by a CAGR of 5% between 2020 and 2025.
This study analyses key road freight market trends and provides the growth outlook for the GCC road freight market in terms of the size of market segments, such as FTL, LTL, bulk, temperature-controlled, and courier, parcel, and last-mile delivery services. It also covers the technology adoption trends, infrastructure development plans, intra-GCC trade snapshots, road freight regulations, fuel prices and subsidies, and their implications for the freight transportation and supply chain service providers. In addition to the analysis of the impact of new business models like connectivity and convergence, segment-specific competitive landscape and opportunities for the road freight market have also been included in the analysis.
