IDC: Asia Pacific IT market to reach US$132b in 2007

By Computerworld Philippines

Updated: 06 Jan 2007

The overall IT market in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) is forecasted to reach US$132 billion in 2007, fueled by increasing domestic demand and economic growth in the region spearheaded by India and China, according to IDC’s annual forecast.

“The region’s astounding rates of economic and IT market growth have resulted in dynamic and rapidly evolving corporate and consumer markets. This is a role the region has gradually accepted, but the growth is now taking off explosively,” said Eva Au, managing director for IDC Asia/Pacific.

According to her, the region’s economic empowerment has created more discerning and demanding IT users “who now require technology which is sensitive to the region’s unique demands and are increasingly responsive to the needs of mobile communications, converged devices, and results-oriented IT projects."

IDC predicts the IT market in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) to reach US$132 billion in 2007, a 10 percent growth over 2006.

Together, China and India will make up more than 43 percent of the region’s IT spend, with China remaining the largest IT market consisting 32 percent of the region’s IT spending and India growing at a remarkable 23 percent.

While the major economies are expected to continue to deliver strong results, both China and India will begin a more serious look internally, focusing on bridging urban/rural divides and developing infrastructure.

"These changes will require specific knowledge of domestic markets for companies to successfully compete within these major markets,” said Au.

IDC believes there will be three major areas of focus in 2007 in relation to the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) market in the region:

Innovative and useful services:

With the wireless internet experience becoming a reality for businesses and consumers, this will provide added impetus for companies to roll out mobility services to help us work and play.

Standardization to simplify and reduce costs:

Asian enterprises will simplify and adopt a service orientation in IT architectures by standardizing on components. System Integration vendors will look at reducing risk for project delivery by standardizing their service offerings.

Smarter approaches to markets:

Software vendors in APEJ are responding to the need for competitive offerings, particularly for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB), as larger firms lag with practical and straightforward SMB offerings; Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) vendors are seeking to build longer term relationships with Asian firms, which have been slow to take advantage of the BPO phenomenon.