Saudi Arabia is streaming and the world should be watching

Uncertainty has a way of separating those who are building for the long term from those who were never serious to begin with. Saudi Arabia’s digital economy has not paused. The fundamentals have not shifted. If anything, the Kingdom has demonstrated exactly the kind of structural resilience that serious investors and partners recognize when they see it. That is the signal worth paying attention to.
Vision 2030 was not designed to perform well only in favorable conditions. It laid the foundation for a future that is always in flux and consistently outstrips present imagination. The Saudi digital economy now contributes $131 billion to gross domestic product. The country’s technology sector has created more than 381,000 quality jobs. The participation of women in tech has risen from 7 percent in 2018 to 35 percent today. This is not a market assembling itself in response to disruption, it is one that anticipated it.
What makes Saudi Arabia’s position so distinct is not only what it has already built, but the nature of the capital behind it. Its investment strategy is not cyclical, it is generational. As the legendary management consultant Dominic Barton once argued, the most consequential capital is that which plays the long game. The Kingdom deploys, attracts, and anchors investment in ways that do not bend to short-term turbulence.
Saudi Arabia’s role in the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance exemplifies that. Savvy Games Group’s $38 billion investment mandate reinforces it. The Esports World Cup, the development of Qiddiya as a global entertainment, sports, and cultural destination, and the broader gaming and entertainment infrastructure build-out all point in the same direction: Saudi Arabia is not pausing to wait for the world to settle, it is making structural bets on the future of media, entertainment, and digital infrastructure, and it is making them now.
The audience reflects that same confidence. Saudi Arabia is young, hyperconnected and participatory by habit. Over 70 percent of the population is under the age of 35. Internet penetration sits at 99 percent. Close to 80 percent of people consume video content online every single day.
On Kick, that behavior is already visible in the numbers. Last year alone, streamers in the Kingdom generated 37,178 live streams, translating into nearly 241 million hours of content watched during 2025. The year before, the figure was 117.7 million hours, meaning Kick saw 104.8 percent year-on-year growth in watch hours in an already massive market. These are not passive audiences browsing for something to watch. They are deliberate, loyal, and growing. The market is not waiting for conditions to improve, it is already active. 

What livestreaming does is put the tools of storytelling directly in the hands of the people living it.

Ethan Wright

This is precisely why the platforms that will define Saudi Arabia’s creator economy are the ones building relationships, infrastructure, and trust right now. Showing up in difficult moments is not recklessness; in a market where long-term commitment matters enormously, it is the most credible signal a platform can send. The partnerships, conversations, and foundations taking shape today will determine who holds a meaningful role in this market five years from now. Kick’s presence in Saudi Arabia is not despite the current climate; it is a statement about what lies beyond it.
For brands, the opportunity is becoming even more concrete. Kick is preparing to launch programmatic advertising on the platform, opening a direct channel to engage one of the world’s most active and youthful digital audiences at scale. Saudi Arabia’s creator economy is not just a cultural story. It is a commercial one.
Livestreaming does more than entertain; it opens a window into society. When audiences around the world watch a Saudi creator stream their daily life, their city, their culture, they are not simply consuming content; they are encountering a place. That has profound implications for Saudi Arabia’s tourism ambitions, which depend not just on infrastructure and investment but on imagination — on people deciding that Saudi Arabia is somewhere they want to go.
Culture shapes platforms as much as platforms shape culture. What livestreaming does is put the tools of storytelling directly in the hands of the people living it, in real time, without mediation. Saudi Arabia has a story to tell and the creators to tell it. Stories just need the right platform to carry them.
That long-term conviction shows at the highest levels of global investment. The Future Investment Initiative Priority Summit in Rome this June, ahead of the FII’s landmark 10th edition in Riyadh in October, will once again bring together the world’s most influential investors, policymakers, and innovators. Artificial intelligence, data, and digital infrastructure sit at the heart of the program, a recognition that the most consequential questions in media and technology are no longer emerging only from Silicon Valley or Brussels, but from rooms shaped by Saudi capital and Saudi ambition.
Saudi Arabia is not waiting for the world to catch up; the question is whether the rest of the industry moves fast enough to be part of what it is building.

• Ethan Wright is the Director at KICK, responsible for driving platform scale, commercial performance, and long-term strategic execution across a rapidly growing global live-streaming ecosystem.