Gartner on Monday said India's information technology (IT) spending in 2012 will reach $79.8 billion, a 9.1 per cent increase from 2011 projected spending of $73.1 billion. The global IT consultancy firm has said that despite global economic challenges, enterprises will continue to invest in IT.
The telecommunications market is the largest IT segment in India with IT spending forecast to reach $54.7 billion in 2012, followed by the IT services market with spending of $11.1 billion. The computing hardware market in India is projected to reach $10.7 billion in 2012, and software spending will total $3.2billion.
Gartner pointed out that India was the ninth-largest economy in the world, and the pace of economic growth in India, with a mild dip (by global standards) during the worldwide recession in late 2008 and 2009, had brought the role of IT into sharp focus within many enterprises. India like other emerging markets continues exercising strong momentum despite inflationary pressures and appreciation of local currencies, which are expected in rising economies.
According to Gartner's Senior Vice-President and Global Head of Research Peter Sondergaard, “Businesses are increasingly looking to IT to help support the challenges of enhancing customer support, supply chain management, optimising business processes or helping drive innovation in the business. These demands are being placed on IT in an environment in which the infrastructure (hardware and software) foundation of IT within many enterprises may not be entirely in place. IT is also in transition from being viewed as a back-office support function to a frontline business-focused function.”
Gartner's forecast also shows that worldwide IT spending will reach nearly $3.7 trillion in 2011. From this amount, emerging economies will account for $1.013 trillion.
