Global IT market intelligence company International Data Corporation (IDC) officially launched its direct presence in SA last night, at a function held in Bryanston.
Speaking at the event, Jyoti Lalchandani, regional VP for the Middle East and Africa at IDC, highlighted SA's IT market maturity versus other markets in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). SA accounts for $9.9 billion of the overall $45 billion MEA market, noted Lalchandani.
In SA, software and services account for 41% of spend, versus an average of 26% across the MEA region, he added. "This reflects signs of a maturing market. People are investing in utilising existing infrastructure, as opposed to building infrastructure."
Country manager for SA Nikki Quinn introduced the company's analysts - Richard Hurst (who moves across from BMI-TechKnowledge on 1 March), Pieter Kok, Hannes Fourie, Hein Greyling and Gail Nienaber. Additional headcount is planned for this year, she said.
"Across the MEA region, IT markets are growing two to three times faster than GDP. In SA, market growth is 10.3% versus GDP of 4.8%."
IDC estimates the country's IT spend over 2007 at $8.7 billion. "Turkey, the next closest region in market size, showed spend of $5.1 billion.
"In SA, the hardware sector showed annual growth of 6.3%, software grew 9.5% and services grew 8.4% between 2006 and 2007," she said.
This year, Quinn added, hardware is expected to grow 5%, with laptop sales predicted to show double-digit growth, but desktop growth not likely to be more than 3%. Software is expected to grow 11%, up to $2 billion, "but there is a lot of talk about government accelerating its use of open source software, which will influence growth. Services are expected to grow 9%, to $4 billion, this year, but the skills shortage may impact that."
The IDC has already started generating quarterly market reports, she noted, saying it had initiated these when it began operating in July last year.
The company also has a number of syndicated reports - which it says will be more cheaply available than customised research - planned for the year, based on the issues raised by vendors, resellers and end-users that IDC liases with.
These include: IT Market Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius, Angola, Tanzania, Namibia and Botswana), Green IT/Energy Usage, Virtualisation Trends, Skills Shortage and Skills Development, ICT Spending Analysis in SA by Province, SOA Adoption Trends and SME Versus Enterprise - Priorities, Challenges and Opportunities. Quinn emphasised this was a preliminary list of planned studies.
She also outlined the company's roadshows for the year: the SMB roadshow will be held in April; the IT security, storage and business continuity roadshow, in July; IT in government, in October; and the virtualisation and data centres roadshow, in November.
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