‘IT services revenues to reach $5.8 bn in 2005’

Our eFE Bureau in New Delhi

Indian IT services expenditure is likely to increase by 25.2 per cent from $1.3 billion in 2000 to $1.6 billion in 2001, according to Gartner Dataquest.

IT services revenues are further projected to increase to $5.8 billion in 2005, with a strong growing industry.

While the global economic slowdown and the uncertainty resulting from terrorism are expected to dampen growth through 2002 in many segments and countries.

“Gartner Dataquest believes overall demand will continue to experience double-digit growth from 2003 to 2005,” a release said.
Development and integration are the largest segment within the IT services industry and will continue to be through 2005, according to Gartner Dataquest.

By 2005, the development and integration segment is expected to grow to $4.1 billion from $599 million in 2000, says the release.
Economic and political uncertainty is likely to hit consulting the hardest of all the sectors. “The growth rate of this sector will be about 7.7 per cent which is extremely low for the Indian market,” the release said.

However, individual consulting areas such as security, business continuity planning, networking and e-business related work will be high growing segments within consulting.

“Our local research shows that IT management services continue to do well despite sluggish economies. From late 2002, we expect networking, security and telecommunications technology related services as well as e-business initiatives to be strong drivers,” Gartner research director for the Asia-Pacific IT services Rolf Jestner said.

According to Mr Jestner, the Indian IT market is showing high growth rates as Indian enterprises are taking advantage of the business benefits of using external services providers.