Asia Pacific IT, telecom markets to grow 11%
Asia Pacific IT, telecom markets to grow 11%
Agence France-Presse, Singapore
The Asia-Pacific information technology (IT) and telecommunications markets are projected to expand 11 percent this year, with Indian companies emerging as key players, an industry report said Thursday.
The IT market in the region, excluding Japan, should recover gradually in 2003, driven by infrastructure upgrades to rise 11 percent on the year to US$81 billion, International Data Corp. (IDC) said.
Hardware segments like personal computers, low and middle- range servers and local area networks (LAN) are expected to rebound from weak demand in 2002, IDC said in its projections for the year.
Despite a global meltdown, the region's telecommunications market is expected to also grow by 11 percent to $137 billion, it said.
"The telecommunications services industry in the region will continue its growth momentum driven by deregulation and pent-up demand in the developing countries," said Piyush Singh, managing director at IDC Asia-Pacific.
"Broadband will continue to proliferate, driven by lower prices, competition and the exploding online gaming phenomenon in the region."
Beyond 2003, the industry "will enter a new decade of growth driven by personal intelligent gadgets, pervasive connectivity, mobility, seamless information exchange and bio-informatics," he said.
He also said that top Indian services companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam Computer Services will ride the global cost-cutting wave to become key industry players.
The network storage market will cross the $1-billion threshold and demand for "converged handheld devices" resulting from the merger of the handset and personal digital assistants should also expand.
"By the end of the year, digital images captured per day by scanners, cameras and devices will surpass the number of images captured on film, but the industry will still center on film," IDC said.
Security solutions will remain in demand due to the continuing threat of terrorism and viruses.
The region will also cross key milestones this year.
By the year's end, there will be more than 100 million personal computers and 400 million mobile phones in the region. The year will also see more than 165 million Internet users and 25 million mobile Internet users, it said.
IT spending will cross the $80-billion threshold and Internet commerce should surpass $150 billion, while telecom services revenue should top $135 billion.