IT sector may emerge leader in Asia-Pacific

India's information technology (IT) market is set to grow the fastest in the Asia-Pacific region in 2005, says the International Data Corporation (IDC) in a survey.

According to the survey, the industry is poised to register a growth of 21.7 per cent year on year. It attributes the acceleration in growth to rising corporate profits, improvement in macro-economic parameters (both globally and locally), and heightened business confidence.

Noting that mobility, convergence and IT management will drive growth in 2005, the survey identifies notebooks, smart hand-held devices, inkjet MFDs, security software, network and systems-management software, information access and delivery software, and IT outsourcing as high-growth categories that are likely to witness a growth of over 30 per cent year on year.

The study says commoditisation will continue to define the hardware industry (x86 servers and disk storage). It says wireless will go mainstream touching the lives of the common people and the Internet access market will see a structural shift, with broadband being limited to basic access.

In IT infrastructure, the survey predicts acquisitions, partnerships and challenges at the global level in 2005, which will have a bearing on the Indian market.

In business process outsourcing, this year will see enterprises race to lower their cost structure with competition getting more intense.

The end-to-end services model will come of age and become mainstream in 2005, with customers looking for single-point accountability.

The IDC study also highlights the fact that enterprise application providers focused on small and medium businesses will be driven by verticalisation.

The study predicts IT spending will grow 6.1 per cent globally, based on assumptions of a slightly cooler world economy, a mild rebound in western Europe, continued high prices of crude oil and the general level of political unrest.

"In 2005, the Asia-Pacific region will offer a very different IT growth picture. Japan, by far the largest IT market in Asia-Pacific, will continue to trail the US and Europe in terms of growth rate," the IDC report added.

The survey also points out that globally the three emerging technologies worth watching in 2005 will be RFID with sensors, mesh networks and semantic web.