The Hindu Business Line : India’s IT market likely to grow 18%: Forrester

While India, Korea and China show tremendous enthusiasm for the SaaS model, Japan and Hong Kong look reluctant to abandon development and licensing models.

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New Delhi, June 13 Signalling its maturity as IT consumer and not just a supplier, the Indian IT market is projected to grow 18 per cent in 2008 to touch $38 billion, the second highest growth rate after China, Forrester said on Friday.

According to the latest Forrester study, the Indian IT market’s growth rates would come within a striking distance of China’s growth percentage, although a 20-per cent growth would catapult the latter’s domestic market to a whopping $138 billion in size.

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Forrester termed the double-digit growth as “welcome news” for technology vendors — who see sluggishness in the US and European markets — and advised them to now recognise India as a consumer of IT than just a supplier.

Commenting on the finding, Forrester’s senior analyst Mr Jonathan Brown pointed out that the IT sector had long looked to India for top-drawer technology talent. “But India is poised to become an increasingly important market for technology vendors as its population comes of age (half of India’s population today is under 20), its rural areas become increasingly developed, and its engagement with the US increases. It is time the tech vendors no longer treat India as merely a skilled talent pool but also as a lucrative market in its own right.”

Forrester felt that Indian firms would make great leaps in application integration, ERP, CRM, unified communications, and security and regulatory compliance.

The report noted that while Asia-Pacific economies are closely connected to each other through trade and cross investment, they differed in their levels of economic development and the state of their IT infrastructure. For instance, while India, Korea and China demonstrated tremendous enthusiasm for the SaaS (software as service) model, Japan and Hong Kong appeared reluctant to abandon traditional development and licensing models in favour of SaaS.