Domestic IT market in growth phase: IDC

NEW DELHI: The India domestic IT market is into a growth phase and 2005 witnessed huge traction, according to IDC.

Coming out of a slowdown in 2003, the industry entered the next business cycle showing consistent growth in 2004 and 2005. IDC predicts the growth story to continue in 2006 keeping 'the fastest growing IT market in AP region' crown for India intact. The India domestic IT market is estimated to grow at 19% in 2006 over 2005.

"In 2003, the market was just out of a slowdown and it was a phase when strategic choices were made and trends were at the tipping point. 2004 and beyond was predicted to be a period of operationalising these strategic decisions and trends were predicted to enter the mainstream. Year 2006 will see some of these key trends witnessing further traction and will be governed by the underlying theses of mobility, convergence and infrastructure management", commented Kapil Dev Singh, country manager, IDC (India) Limited.

"As per IDC's 2004 and 2005 predictions, the industry convergence, consolidation and realignment was around two themes — dynamic IT in the enterprise space and the advent and increasing proliferation of digital devices in the consumer space. These themes will further get defined and enhanced with increasing penetration of IT in households and growing depth in the enterprise segment," Singh added.

He further stated, "The ecosystem in terms of PC adoption, broadband usage and increasing relevance of IT to small enterprises will fuel growth and increasing integration of IT with business in enterprises will drive depth."

IDC has predicted India to continue to be the fastest growing domestic IT market in the AP region, to continue to grow at 19% in 2006 with the other Asian giant China growing at 12%; Servers, the fundamental building-block of IT infrastructure to cross 100,000 shipments in 2006: Need to deliver higher performance across Business Functions and Consolidation to pave the road to Dynamic IT; Outsourcing Services to outgrow Technology Product Services (standalone) in 2006: To contribute largest chunk of 24% of Indian IT Services market; Anytime, Anywhere Information Availability to drive Shift towards Policy-based Security Management and Administration in 2006, lay roadmap for Federated Security environments and said 2006 will be the year of the digital home revolution.

It also predicted that unrestricted IP Telephony will boost IP-PBX shipments to over 25% of PBX line shipments by end-2006, but low PSTN tariffs will constrain VoIP usage; Verticals Orientation to Speed up Internal Organisational Restructuring and Change Go-To-Market Strategies of IT Vendors: Industry-specific Solutions to be major driver of corporate IT Spending in 2006 and beyond; Application Integration, Consolidation with Business Analytics will gain momentum in 2006; Cost no more the key factor in Colour Adoption: Quality, Availability and Competitive Need to witness Colour Laser shipments growing by 50% in 2006 over 2005 and Worldwide IT and Business Services: Focus on SMEs, global assets, global sourcing for innovation, and industry focused BPO.