‘Indian IT Spend to Grow 7.7% to $72 b in 2013’

While the IT spend is coming down globally, India Inc, which has for long been outsourcing shy, is looking forward to take another leap with new technology themes like cloud, mobility, social media and analytics. According to technology researcher Gartner, Indian IT spending is projected to reach $71.5 billion in 2013, growing 7.7% from the $66.4-billion forecasted for 2012. "India, like other emerging markets, continues to exercise strong momentum despite inflationary pressures and appreciation of local currencies, which are expected in rising economies," Peter Sondergaard, senior VP and global head of research firm Gartner, said. 
"Despite flat IT budgets in global and domestic markets, Indian IT firms are growing because they are seeing growth in new sectors and verticals. Companies are looking at collaboration and digitisation," Soundergaard added. 
Telecommunications spend is projected to be highest at $47.8 billion, followed by IT services and hardware. The hardware segment alone will account for 14.1% of all IT spending in India by 2016. "Mobile phones will continue to be the fastest-growing (42%) space within the Indian IT market. It will also account for nearly 26% of the overall IT spending," said Partha Iyengar, head of research – India, Gartner. 
In a survey, Gartner found that a majority of the CEOs believe IT will make a greater contribution in their industries in the next 10 years, and are willing to raise their IT investment. Covering the new tech themes — social, mobile, analytics and cloud — Gartner predicts by 2015, 10 organisations will each spend over $1billion on social media, while in mobile space, 20% of sales organisations will use iPads as the primary mobile platform for their field sales force. In big data and cloud space, over the next four years, 30% of organisations will hire chief data officers, while the cloud market will double in size to nearly $145 billion for business process services.