Showing signs of maturity, Czech IT market growth slowed to 8.6% in 2005, down from an impressive 14.7% in 2004. Nevertheless, according to IDC , revenue passed the significant $3 billion mark for the first time last year, and the market will pick up again this year, reaching 10.5% growth by the end of December.
‘As one of the most developed in Central Europe,’ Steven Frantzen, Group VP of IDC CEMA and General Manager for Research, IDC EMEA, ‘ the Czech IT market has been shifting from hardware to software and services for some time now. Although replacement buying and upgrades continue, enterprises in the Czech Republic are generally set for hardware infrastructure and are now looking to use it more effectively, not just as a management tool but also for business development.’
While the combined hardware market is still growing, it dropped from more than 47% of spending in 2001 to just under 43% in 2005. According to IDC, PCs continued to dominate the segment and notebooks are expected to drive revenue for the next few years. Disk storage was and will be the fastest growing sub-segment, as companies are augmenting servers with disk storage systems capable of handling the massive influx of data and memory-hungry applications. ‘Mobility is where the action is,’ says Tomas Oupicky, Senior Analyst, Systems, IDC CEMA. ‘Notebooks already constitute more revenue than desktops and in a year or two will also account more shipments as well. Also, right now businesses are replacing desktops with portables and many first-time buyers are purchasing notebooks instead of desktops.’
In contrast to hardware, IT services has gone from 34.5% of spending in 2001 to 40% in 2005, with all sub-segments exhibiting healthy growth. Though implementation services is the largest category, operations management is the fastest growing. ‘The fact that higher-end services like operations management are the most dynamic reflects the market’s maturity,‘ says Jeffrey Vavra, Senior Analyst, IT Services, IDC CEMA. ‘These advanced services will continue to take share away from lower-end options, like support and implementation, as companies are looking for services that can be tied to strategy and long-term business development .’
Packaged software is the smallest but fastest growing segment of the Czech IT market. Because it started from a smaller base, its share only rose from 18.3% of spending in 2001 to 20.5% in 2005. According to IDC, most new business for packaged software is coming from small and medium-sized organizations, as large and very large organizations are at saturation. ‘Users are no longer looking for the quickest fix to back-office needs,’ says Tom Vavra, Research Director , Software, IDC CEMA. ‘Falling profit margins and fiercer competition across the board means organizations are increasingly scrutinizing an application’s potential for long-term return on investment. ‘
Source: IDC
2006-04-03
Em Foco – Projecto