From lighting to IT: Business for domestic companies in Saudi Arabia is booming

90 million euro lighting project for Mecca

The company Lights of Vienna from Guntramsdorf has been active in Saudi Arabia for around 30 years and has one this year 90 million euro lighting project for the Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca. The mosque was equipped with chandeliers from the Viennese company J. & L. Lobmeyr in the 1970s. “Light stands for divine presence, guidance and truth. That’s why chandeliers are so important,” explained the managing partner of Lights of Vienna, Alexander Oborny.

The project in the Al-Haram Mosque accounted for a whopping 70 percent of the total business over the past two years. Because Lights of Vienna gilded the chandeliers with nothing less than 200 kilograms of 24-karat gold. Oborny only knows the results on site from videos and pictures. As a non-Muslim, he is forbidden to enter the mosque.

Despite good business, “not the golden egg”

Despite booming business, Saudi Arabia is “not the golden egg that some people expect,” but “a market like any other,” emphasized the founder of the lighting company MK Illumination, Klaus Mark. To be successful in Saudi Arabia, you need, above all, “patience and the time to get to know the market and make contacts,” said Mark. His company, based in Tyrol, creates festive and seasonal light installations. The company is planning to open its own branch in Saudi Arabia in 2026, says Mark. In order to get local contacts, the company first spoke to the former economics minister Margarete Schramböck cooperates with a company that operates in Saudi Arabia. Since then, the company has been scoring particularly well Ramadan lighting in shopping centers. To achieve this, they engage “light artists and designers who know the culture and understand taste,” added Mark.

Audience in Saudi Arabia: young, with high technical demands

Similarly, Nous Digital also relies on local expertise. The IT company says it specializes in storytelling and uses media guides, apps and virtual reality. The goal: a combination of “Asian pioneering spirit from Dubai and Viennese charm,” as it says on the company website. Nous Digital is currently receiving many orders from large-scale tourism and cultural projects in Saudi Arabia, such as in the oasis of al-‘Ula, a central cultural and tourism project in the kingdom. The audience in Saudi Arabia is young, the technical demands are highsaid managing director Raphael Schneeberger. To implement projects, the company speaks with archaeologists, translates content into the Saudi dialect and adapts concepts to the local population. Using virtual reality glasses, visitors to the oasis could, for example, watch how corpses were buried there around 2,000 years ago.

Volatile and lengthy projects as a challenge

The companies face similar challenges doing business in Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, the long duration and potentially volatile nature of the projects mean that some orders have to begin without an official order, explained Schneeberger. On the other hand, there is a lot Persuasion asked to encourage customers to buy high quality goods at a higher price. In order to win and process projects, there are also local contacts and presence on site extremely important. Because the first contact usually comes from the customer: “In the Arab world you will be found,” says Schneeberger.