India is expected to be the third largest IT market in Asia Pacific by 2016, with IT spending projected to total to about $73.3 billion in 2015, a 9.4% increase from $67.1 billion forecast for 2014, revealed a study by Gartner today.
“India is forecast to be the third largest IT market within the Asia/Pacific region by the end of 2016 and will further progress to become the second largest market for IT by the end of 2018,” said Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research. “Much of the growth from being the number four market in Asia/Pacific to number three is likely to happen in 2015.”
IT services will record the strongest revenue growth at 15.7% in 2015; while software will grow at 14%, the Sondergaard said. Devices will continue to account for the second largest part of the market with 33% share of revenue and will grow 12.6% in 2015. The telecommunication services segment will account for 39.3% of the Indian ICT market and it is set to grow at 4.2% revenue growth in 2015.
“IT spending in India is on pace to increase 2.9% this year, primarily on the back of strong growth within the IT services and software, which will grow 10.5% and 9.6%,” said Partha Iyengar, distinguished analyst and Gartner India Head of Research.
According to Gartner, in 2014, mobile devices will grow 13.5%, and will dislodge mobile voice services to be the largest segment within the overall IT market in India. Mobile data services will be the fastest growing segment in India, growing 18.2% in 2014. Telecommunication services that will account for 41.4% of overall IT spend, and it will decline 0.7% in 2014.
“The impact that the digital business economy is having on the IT industry is dramatic. Since 2013 650 million new physical objects have come online. 3D printers became a billion dollar market; 10%of automobiles became connected; and the number of Chief Data Officers and Chief Digital Officer positions have doubled. In 2015, all of these things will double again,” said Sondergaard.
Sondergaard further added that this year enterprises are expected to spend over $40 billion in designing, implementing and operating the Internet of Things. “Every piece of equipment, anything of value, will have embedded sensors. This means leading asset-intensive enterprises will have over half a million IP addressable objects in 2020,” he said.
Gartner estimates that 50% of all technology sales people are actively selling direct to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers.