Growth of 4.5% predicted for ICT services market

“Of the OECD economies, ANZ is currently leading the pack in terms of economic performance and will see further influx of investment that will drive the services market to pre-recession growth levels by 2011,” says Jens Butler, Principal Analyst, Ovum.

According to Ovum’s model titled 'ANZ Market Trends 2009: IT services forecast', the ANZ market will show a modest recovery with growth tending above 4.5% in 2010. Even with such a relatively positive forecast, the market will not see pre-recessionary growth levels until the start of 2011 at the earliest.

ANZ has passed through the bottom of the economic cycle and is rebounding (albeit relatively conservatively) into the post-GFC world in a healthy position. This is mostly due to the positive economic performance from Australia, which did not technically drop into recession during the crisis.

By the end of the forecast period in 2013, the ANZ IT services market will grow to over $14 billion. “A substantial level of interest is being shown by IT services vendors in the ANZ market, be it from a consulting-led view and the associated uptick, as well as driving into some of the more non-traditional verticals, ie, chasing the money in utilities and the public sector.

“The recession did impact the IT services market in ANZ to some extent, spread across a number of sectors and services, with consulting being hit relatively hard,” said Butler. “However, this area has rebounded strongly towards the end of 2009 within a number of key verticals and is leading the investment charge into 2010.”

Infrastructure outsourcing and support services have shown consistent strength over the past couple of years and been the 'safe harbour' for many service providers during the GFC, with the top five vendors having increased their proportion of the overall market to over 50%.

Overall, this reflects a relatively rosy picture for the region’s second-largest IT services market and with the upswing in confidence within the business community, it does bode well for ANZ going forward.