The global IT market is expected to witness an exponential growth of 9.3% and touch $1,534 billion in 2010 on the back of new technology cycles and improved capital investments in computer hardware and software purchases, said research firm Forrester.
However, this is much higher when compared to recent Gartner predictions that said IT spending worldwide would see a growth of 5.4% to reach $3,394 billion.
Forrester said its forecasts are driven on the back of nominal GDP growth globally, business profits, productivity trends and presence or absence of recession. The prediction was also based on technology innovation and growth cycle, instead of technology digestion cycle and value of dollar versus euro, yen and other major currencies.
The report said that the spending in the computer equipment category would increase by 11.1%, communications equipment by 7.2%, software by 10.5% , IT consulting services by 6.4% and IT outsourcing by 5.7%. However, according to Forrester, the overall growth would slightly mellow down to 8.5% to touch $1,664 billion in 2011.
Andrew Bartels, vice-president & principal analyst, Forrester Research, said: ?We see new innovation and technology cycles to drive a lot of growth this year. As the purchases in the software licenses have picked up, technology firms will see increase in system integration contracts. Consulting too has picked up. However, outsourcing will see further improvement by the second half of the year.?
According to Bartels, India?s Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro Technologies have a significant market share of about 20-25% in the global consulting market. ?Though the Indian firms are focusing on the consulting area, they are still heavily dependent on IT services outsourcing. Prices are low, and therefore, irrespective of the increase in volumes, the firms have not seen much improvement.?
According to Forrester, the US IT market is expected to grow by 8.4% to touch $ 550 billion in 2010 and 8.2% to touch $ 595 billion in 2011. IT consulting and system integration in the US will see a growth of 6.4% and IT outsourcing services will grow 5.7%, though system integration will recover in the second half of the calendar year.
Forrester said that much of the growth in the US IT market during 2010-2016 will come from new generation of smart computing technologies like dynamic business applications, SOA and BPM, industry-specific devices, unified communications, current software, current computer equipment and current communications equipment.