India continues to be fastest growing IT spent market: Gartner

IT spending in India is projected to total $71.5 billion in 2013, a 7.7% increase from the $66.4 billion forecasted for 2012, according to Gartner, Inc.

“India like other emerging markets continues exercising strong momentum despite inflationary pressures and appreciation of local currencies, which are expected in rising economies,“ said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research at Gartner.

The telecommunications market is the largest IT segment in India with IT spending forecast to reach $47.8 billion in 2013, followed by the IT services market with spending of $10.3 billion. The computing hardware market in India is projected to reach $9.5 billion in 2013, and software spending will total nearly $4.0 billion. Software will record the strongest revenue growth at 15%, IT services will grow at 12%. The telecom segment, which accounts for 67% of the Indian ICT market, is set to grow at 7% revenue growth in 2013.

“Businesses are increasingly looking to IT to help support the challenges of enhancing customer support, supply chain management, optimizing business processes or helping drive innovation in the business,” Sondergaard said. “These demands are being placed on IT in an environment in which the infrastructure (hardware and software) foundation of IT within many enterprises may not be entirely in place. IT is also in transition from being viewed as a back-office support function to a frontline business-focused function.”