India’s IT spending will buck the overall global slowdown and grow at a strong rate of 16.3% in dollar terms this year, International Data Corporation (IDC) said.
The growth forecast is unexpectedly strong and bullish, given that Gartner recently predicted that global IT spending will grow only 3% this year.
According to IDC, India’s total lT spending in 2012 will be $43.57 billion, compared to 37.46 billion last year.
Of course, India’s total IT market is only a small portion (1.2%) of the total IT spending of $3.6 trillion a year.
Still, India’s growth is second to only that of China’s, according to IDC.
“Despite lesser than expected GDP growth figures in 2011-2012, followed by a similar trend in the quarter ending June 2012, India still commands a high growth rate, next only to China among the BRIC countries – and higher than several developing economies,” IDC said.
“Rupee depreciation and high inflation have slowed down consumer spending – but this is expected to be a temporary phenomenon,” it added.
The strongest spending is by Retail & Wholesale, Energy & Utilities, and Healthcare segments, all of which saw growth of 23% or more in 2011. Finance (BFSI,) Communication & Media, Government, Manufacturing and IT/ITeS grew at 14%-18% last year, IDC added.
38% of Enterprise IT spending in 2011 was by the SME segment. The proportion is expected to grow to 43% by 2015, IDC said.
“Although at a nascent stage of adoption, Indian enterprises have started leveraging social technologies externally for customer engagement and internally to promote team collaboration and knowledge sharing. There is large demand for SaaS based applications among large enterprises. Enterprise mobility is at the top in terms of organization focus and investments. Awareness around Big Data technologies and its benefits is increasing with time, with vendors and technology advisory firms playing a key role in educating enterprise stakeholders.” said Pavan Magge, Senior Analyst, Consulting Group, IDC India