Gartner Inc., a US-based information technology research and advisory company, forecasts that India’s Information Technology market, the third largest among the emerging economies, will grow by 5.9 percent to $71.3 billion by next year.
About 7 percent year-on-year growth is expected, with the government itself investing over $6.4 billion by 2014. Overall expansion of different sectors like hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications is expected.
Among the various sectors that are expect to continue booming, telecommunication is expected to be the best performer. Indian device market is forecasted to expand and the growth is likely to be driven by the sale of mobile phones. With the innovation driven market products like tablets and ultra-mobile PCs will represent more than 80 percent of device spending.
“The digital world is here and this result in every budget being an IT budget. This is resulting in the beginning of an era: the Digital Industrial Economy. The Digital Industrial Economy will be built on the foundations of the Nexus of Forces (which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information) and the Internet of Everything by combining the physical world and the virtual,” Peter Sondergard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research said in a statement.
The IT services sectors are likely to project the fastest growth among the various segments with 13 percent growth to reach $11.2 billion by next year. $4.1 billion is hoped to generate through Software.
“IT services, which include consulting, implementation, IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing, will be the largest overall spending category throughout 2017 in country within the government sector,” said Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner.
Several top Indian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies are targeting the ICT markets after exporting IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPO) expertise across the globe for several years.
“The Indian government is also developing a cloud policy, namely the GI cloud (or Meghraj) which will see more clarity in the near future. Wide proliferation of affordable broadband connectivity (and mobile phones alongside) is expected to provide further opportunities in eGovernance and mobility solutions.
“Alongside central government projects such as excise, income tax, and post office; other state governments will also undertake initiatives in municipalities, land records and other joint initiatives like digital court rooms and common service centres,” added Gupta.
IT End-User Spending Forecast, India, 2013-2017 (US$ Millions)
| Segment | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Devices | 22,177 | 23,504 | 26,644 | 31,118 | 34,108 |
| Data Center Systems | 2,326 | 2,492 | 2,668 | 2,825 | 2,973 |
| Software | 3,729 | 4,109 | 4,667 | 5,293 | 6,014 |
| IT Services | 9,945 | 11,235 | 13,037 | 15,137 | 17,608 |
| Telecommunications Services | 29,225 | 30,006 | 30,728 | 31,545 | 32,277 |
| Grand Total | 67,402 | 71,347 | 77,744 | 85,917 | 92,980 |