Saudi Arabia witnessed a sharp increase in education spending, surging 178.6% to SR249.5 million during the week of Nov. 17–23. This growth contrasted sharply with declines across other sectors, as highlighted by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA)’s latest POS transactions bulletin.
Education Outpaces All Other Sectors
The education sector stood out as the only category to record growth, with transactions rising 62.3% to 164,000. Meanwhile, other consumer spending sectors faced significant declines. Clothing and footwear posted the largest drop, falling 25.1% to SR694 million, followed by hotel expenditures, which dipped 23.5% to SR305.6 million.
Spending on restaurants and cafes, the second-largest POS contributor, fell 19.6% to SR1.66 billion. Total POS transactions across all sectors decreased 13.1% week-on-week, dropping to SR11.5 billion from SR13.2 billion the previous week.
Declines Across Key Sectors
The electronics sector saw expenditures decrease by 9.3% to SR179.6 million, while telecommunications spending fell 11.2% to SR104 million. Food and beverages, the top contributor to POS transactions, experienced a 9.8% dip, totaling SR1.7 billion.
Miscellaneous goods and services ranked third among spending categories but still recorded a 10.6% drop, amounting to SR1.3 billion. Together, these top three categories accounted for 41.3% of the week’s total transaction value, or SR4.7 billion.
Construction and building materials saw the smallest decline, with spending down 3% to SR340.5 million. Health sector expenditures dropped 7.3% to SR710 million.
Regional Spending Insights
Riyadh led in POS transactions, representing 35.9% of total expenditures, despite an 8.2% decline to SR4.1 billion. Jeddah followed, with spending dropping 14.2% to SR1.5 billion, while Dammam recorded a 7.9% decrease to SR590.5 million.
Hail experienced the steepest decline in spending, falling 20% to SR177.4 million. Tabouk and Abha saw respective drops of 11.4% and 9.8%, with spending totaling SR209 million and SR134.9 million.
Makkah and Madinah recorded significant transaction declines of 15.2% and 14.9%, respectively, bringing total transactions to 7.6 million and 7.8 million.
