Indian IT spending in 2021 to grow 8 pc to USD 92.7 bn

IT spending in the country is expected to grow at 8 per cent to USD 92.7 billion in 2021, a report by a consultancy said on Wednesday.

The growth at 8 per cent is a shade less than the world average of 8.6 per cent, Gartner said, adding that global spends on information technology are estimated to come at USD 4.2 trillion.

In India, the overall IT spending growth slowed down to 1.5 per cent to USD 85.865 billion in 2020, probably hit by the pandemic.

Enterprise software will be the biggest growth area, and growth in spends is estimated to be maintained at 16.9 per cent to USD 9.218 billion in 2021, Gartner said.

After a de-growth of 5.9 per cent in 2020, the largest spend category of devices will see a 7.6 per cent growth to USD 38.747 billion in 2021, the analysts estimated.

IT services will register a 10.7 per cent growth to USD 18.103 billion in 2021, as against a 3 per cent growth in 2020, it said.

After a 11.4 per cent de-growth in 2020, spending on data centre systems is estimated to grow by 3.4 per cent to USD 2.706 billion in 2021, while the growth in communications services will slow down to 4.3 per cent to USD 23.979 billion, as against 10.9 per cent jump in 2020.

It can be noted that the country’s largest software company TCS had last week reported a hit to the overall earnings because of the impact of the second wave-induced lockdowns on the business.

“The second wave of the pandemic and associated lockdowns have brought a significant sluggishness during most of the second quarter of 2021. However, demand is witnessing a rapid recovery across the majority of the sectors,? Naveen Mishra, senior research director at Gartner, said.

Pharma, healthcare, financial services, education, online retail and government continue to invest in their digital transformation journey, he added.

Indian organisations including SMEs will be better positioned to invest more into IT, through the next two quarters, the company said.

In 2022, the IT spending is expected to grow 6.4 per cent to USD 98.645 billion, as per the estimates. Financial Express