Indian IT services market to grow at 18.6%

Indian information technology (IT) services market will remain the fastest growing in the Asia Pacific region, with a compounded annual growth rate of 18.6 per cent, according to the ‘Asia Pacific IT Services Market and Forecast, 2006-2011’ report by Springboard Research. The report projects the IT services market in the Asia Pacific region to grow to $55.9 billion by 2011.

China will, however, offer the largest market opportunity in dollar terms at the end of the forecast period, says the report. Phil Hassey, vice president-services Research at Springboard Research says, “Although in some quarters it could be expected that the Indian market would grow even more rapidly, it is still fragmented and a long way from maturity.”

“Most local services providers, aside from the worthy headline grabbers such as Tata, IBM and Wipro are based within a city or state with a narrow capability range. National coverage is limited, and typically the engagement cost and contract value pales in comparison on a 'per capita' basis when compared with Australia, Hong Kong or Singapore,” he adds.

The report further shows that application hosting will grow at 19.5 per cent a year between 2007 and 2011 to register the fastest growth during the forecast period. Meanwhile, enterprise application integration at $7.8 billion will continue to be the largest component of the market by 2011.

However, according to the study enterprise IT outsourcing, which was the largest market in 2007, will reduce its relative size and weighting in the market by 2011.