IT spending in India is set to reach $81.9 billion next year, a growth of six per cent from 2020, according to a forecast by Gartner on Monday.
In 2020, IT spending is expected to total $79.3 billion, down 8.4 per cent from 2019.
“The pandemic situation was a wake-up call for many organisations to relook and revive their IT strategies and increase their spending on IT in 2021,” Arup Roy, Research Vice President at Gartner, said in a statement.
In 2020, the devices and data centre systems segments experienced the steepest declines, as spending dropped 26 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively.
Contrary to other markets where spending declined across all segments, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in India continued to spend on enterprise software, IT services and communication services in 2020.
In 2021, IT spending growth will return as CIOs start positioning IT as not just a growth enabler, but a “survival necessary” strategy.
While all segments will experience an increase in spending, the enterprise software segment will achieve the highest growth of 13.6 per cent, followed by data centre systems at 8.3 per cent, Gartner said.
“The ‘Digital India’ mission will turn a new leaf in 2021 as enterprises across all sectors start spending more on IT. The pandemic provided an opportunity for Indian CIOs to test long-pending projects such as remote working, which delivered on-promise for many enterprises and helped them stay afloat in the most testing times,” said Roy.
“The success of these digital innovations has brought back the focus on investments in IT.”
Analysts discussed the outlook for the Indian IT market during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo India, which is taking place virtually through Wednesday.
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