Published on the 28/03/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Tight economic times, political uncertainty, a strong dollar and the imminent end of the mining boom are the four horsemen of the apocalypse now threatening ICT spending in Australia…
Technology analyst IDC has lowered its predictions for enterprise ICT spending growth in Australia to 3 percent for the years between 2012 and 2016.
While IDC’s growth predictions roughly match those provided by another leading analyst, Gartner – which has predicted Australia will increase its ICT spending by 3.25 percent in 2013 – the two firms remain wildly out of whack in terms of predicting dollar figures for Australian ICT investment. While IDC pegs spending this year at around A$44.5 billion, Gartner has forecast the Australian ICT market to be worth a much more robust $71 billion.
Although both companies closely guard their research methodologies, the discrepancy is believed to arise because Gartner includes the cost that enterprises invest internally on IT – salaries and contractor costs for example. IDC meanwhile tracks just what the companies buy in terms of hardware, software and services.
IDC’s vertical markets analyst David So said that growth in the Australian economy had been slower than expected, which was now impacting ICT spending. “IDC has lowered ICT spending growth due to fiscal consolidation, political uncertainty, the high Australian dollar and at a period close to the end of a mining boom,” he said.
The company claims the financial sector is the largest single market for ICT, and is expected to spend more than $10.6 billion this year. The second largest vertical market remains the government sector forecast to increase spending by 3.2 percent until 2016.
However, with a Federal election looming in September, and most of the states and territories looking for savings, it seems unlikely the government sector will prove flamboyant with its technology plans in 2013.
The third largest vertical identified by IDC is communications and media which is expected to increase ICT spending by 4.4 percent between 2012 and 2106 as it is, “the most exposed to disruptive technologies/innovation” and thus forced to invest more in order to compete with emerging businesses according to IDC’s So.
