Domestic IT spend to grow 11.6% to Rs 2.33 trn in '18: Coeus Age Consulting

India's domestic IT spending is estimated to grow at 11.6 per cent to Rs 2332.73 billion this year, helped by government's push for digital services, a report by Coeus Age Consulting said.

The domestic spending in 2017 grew at a slower pace of 10.3 per cent as against the forecast of 12.9 per cent growth, impacted by demonetisation and GST rollout.

"The India IT spend witnessed a lower than expected growth in 2017. This was due to the temporary disruption caused by the structural changes undertaken in the form of demonetisation and GST roll out," Coeus Age Consulting founder and CEO Kapil Dev Singh said.

The impact on IT spend can be termed as an aberration as these reforms will have a positive effect on the economy that is becoming more digital in its functioning, he added.

The report -- titled 'Enterprise Business Priorities and IT Plans 2018, India', -- predicts that in 2018, about 25 per cent of the IT spend of enterprise and government segments put together would be on digital technologies.

These include analytics, mobility and cloud computing and modern infrastructure to support them.

The report is based on inputs from over 100 CIOs/IT heads of large and medium sized Indian enterprises.

It pointed out that more than 60 per cent of the enterprises expressed their interest in exploring the latest digital technologies like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and bots.

"The first wave of digital in the form of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) stack has become mainstream as more and more enterprises are adopting them across their business functions," Singh said.

In 2018, the second wave of digital shall start emerging in the form of big data analytics, AI, IoT, ML and bots, he said adding that this will take 18-24 months to become mainstream.