Huawei and EternityX Unveil $1 Trillion China-Gulf Digital Opportunity

Editorial Team

Last updated 11-11-2025

3 min

Huawei's Petal Ads and EternityX eye a $1 trillion opportunity between China and the GCC.

Chinese travellers spent $805 billion worldwide in 2024, with less than 10% in the Middle East.

Huawei's platforms, reaching over 90 million users, aim to drive growth through digital marketing.

EternityX provides Gulf businesses with tools to target Chinese audiences effectively.

Their collaboration leverages AI insights and first-party data for targeted campaigns.

Huawei’s Petal Ads arm and the AI-driven marketing platform EternityX have teamed up to unveil a new report pointing to a massive opportunity—worth over USD 1 trillion—for closer economic and digital links between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The study, titled *The New Gulf Horizon: Engaging China’s Affluent in the GCC*, pulls together some eye-catching figures about outbound Chinese travellers and investors that could reshape the region’s growth strategies.

According to the report, China counted around 145 million outbound trips in 2024, with travellers spending an astonishing USD 805 billion worldwide. But here’s the kicker: less than 10 per cent of that spending headed towards the Middle East. Chinese outbound investment also hit USD 192.2 billion that same year, a sizeable sum increasingly aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the UAE’s diversification push. I reckon that’s a wake-up call for any GCC brand hoping to snag a piece of this pie.

William Hu, Managing Director of Huawei Consumer Business Group for the Middle East and Africa, highlighted how the company’s digital platforms, including AppGallery and Huawei Browser, already reach more than 90 million users across the region. He noted that EternityX gives brands the tools to “turn every interaction into measurable growth,” bridging technology with tangible return on investment. On paper, that sounds spot on—but as anyone in digital marketing knows, execution can be a bit of a faff.

EternityX’s Global Chief Business Officer, Deric Wong, described the report as “a strategic roadmap built on real data,” designed to help Gulf enterprises move from being merely visible to being profitable with Chinese audiences. And Iris Guan, who heads EternityX in the Middle East, added that the partnership aims to help regional businesses shift from awareness to genuine market action using Huawei’s ad tech and data systems.

Petal Ads’ proprietary demand-side platform (DSP) and data management capabilities are central to this. Thanks to first-party data from Huawei’s ecosystem, brands can fine-tune their targeting and optimize campaign performance. The idea, really, is to use AI insights to connect brands with Chinese travellers and investors before, during and after they engage with GCC destinations.

From my own chats with regional founders here at Arageek events, I’ve noticed many still struggle to “read” Chinese digital behaviour—it’s a different online universe altogether. So this kind of data-driven bridge could be a game changer, assuming companies have the patience and the right local partnerships. On the flip side, understanding cultural nuance is just as critical as all the fancy dashboards.

In essence, Huawei and EternityX are betting that smarter data and localisation will unlock a decade of sustained growth between China and the Gulf. It’s a bold vision, and they’re chuffed to bits to be front and centre of it. Whether it all plays out as smoothly as promised… well, we’ll have to wait and see—but the numbers definately warrant paying attention.

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