THE Asia Pacific information technology industry will improve only slightly next year and recover fully by 2012, a global IT research and advisory company says in its latest projection.
IT spending in the region is expected to reach $515.6 billion, a 5-percent growth over this year’s $490.9 billion, said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research at Gartner Inc.
Speaking at a recent symposium in Sydney, Sondergaard said the turnaround represents a fast V-shaped recovery for technology spending in Asia Pacific from what he described as “the worst year in the history of IT.”
Improvements in software and IT services spending, which are forecast at 10.2 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively, are seen as major drivers of growth in the IT industry.
Software spending reached $20.09 billion this year, while IT services hit $52.1 billion.
Telecommunications, the largest segment of the industry with $350.24 billion in total spending this year, is only expected to increase by 4.2 percent to $364.84 billion next year.
Sondergaard said the figures are not consistent across countries in the region and cautioned IT leaders against being overly optimistic.
In the Philippines, the IT industry is expected to continue drawing growth from business process outsourcing.
“I would assume that the highest significant expenses will be from BPOs,” said Jose Locsin, senior analyst of research firm XMG Asia Pacific.
He said cheap labor and high manpower expertise will fuel the the sector, contributing considerably to the local IT industry.
Also, with business processing companies relying heavily on telecommunication services, Locsin said, the regional forecast of 4.2 percent is attainable in the local setting.
“Telcos should also benefit from the IT [growth] forecast as BPOs depend heavily on telco services,” Locsin said.
On the other hand, consumer IT spending will still be sluggish next year as Filipinos are still financially challenged due to economic crisis and natural disasters, Locsin said.
The Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) earlier forecast that the BPO industry would grow 26 percent to 30 percent this year. But the outlook was later lowered to 20 percent to 23 percent as the financial crisis continued to hurt the global economy.
The association said the local industry aims to generate $12 billion in annual revenues in 2011, but is still threatened by a weaker US dollar and a manpower surplus in the US, which remains the major source of offshore jobs globally.
Business processing companies earned P94.4 billion last year, 21 percent more than the previous year’s P78.3 billion.
Source:-http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideInteractive.htm?f=2009/november/23/interactive1.isx&d=/2009/november/23
