IT spending in Asia Pacific will increase 5.8 percent from 2001 to 2002, exceeding US$258 billion, according to the latest figures from research company Dataquest, a subsidiary of Gartner. Worldwide IT spending for 2002 is projected to increase 3.4 percent to US$2.3 trillion. In 2003, the Asia Pacific region is expected to increase spending another 9.9 percent.
The telecommunications sector will account for 70.9 percent of all Asia Pacific IT spending in 2002, or US$183.6 billion, a year-on-year 5.5 percent increase. The second largest piece of the pie goes to the hardware segment, at US$38.6 billion. The fastest growing sector is IT services, which grew at 10.2 percent to capture US$31.3 billion.
"While this does not indicate a return to the days of the dot.com bubble, it is an indication that organisations are beginning to look more favourably at investing in strategic solutions," said Daniel McHugh, industry analyst for Gartner Asia/Pacific in a statement. "This investment is more closely tied to shorter term return on investment, productivity gain and cost reduction, rather than discretionary spending on new business models."
Gartner expects the next 12 months to see organisations in Australia and New Zealand place priority on security and network infrastructure. Platform and operating system migration is also predicted to figure prominently, with organisations moving off legacy platforms to create interoperable networks.
