Information technology spending worldwide will rebound before the end of this year and resume strong growth through 2006, Framingham, MA-based researchers IDC projects. Calling the rebound by the end of this year “significant,” IDC reports: “IT services will increase at a healthy rate of 12.4% to exceed $626 billion worldwide in 2006. The United States dominated the IT services market in 2001, and will continue to experience an 11.8% growth rate through 2006.”
In its new report “Worldwide IT Services Industry Forecast and Analysis, 2001- 2006,” IDC says that propelling the IT services industry will be the increasingly pervasive nature of computing with the adoption of portable computing devices, the ongoing IT focus on efficiencies and cost reduction within the enterprise, and the expanding opportunity to utilize IT as a tool to solve specific business problem functions.
Until the rebound takes place, outsource providers will see increased business, IDC says. “All flavors of outsourcing will continue to benefit from the slowdown, while what can be seen as less urgent projects--such as discrete IT consulting--will continue to be put on hold,” said Ned May, program manager of IDC's Worldwide Services program.
IDC expects that within a month or two pent-up demand will begin to force spending in project-oriented engagements such as systems integration and custom application development.
The U.S. and Western Europe will account for 74% of IT services spending through 2006, IDC says.
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