Mid-market IT sales set to rocket during 2007
UK IT market poised to consolidate its position as Europe's strongest, claims analyst IDC
Mid-market firms are poised to spearhead a recovery in UK IT spending over the next 12 months, according to market watcher IDC.
The research house has predicted that total UK IT spending will expand by 5.9 per cent to €67.6bn in 2007, significantly outstripping last year’s growth of 4.6 per cent.
Martin Hingley, chief research officer at IDC EMEA, said: “Mid-sized firms with 100 to 1,000 employees will see more IT spending growth than small or large organisations.
“The IT consolidation and centralisation projects vendors have been carrying out for larger companies have run their course. A lot of mid-sized companies haven’t done this yet and could benefit from it.”
Hingley added that many mid-sized firms had grown from a small size, but still lacked professional IT staff and had some “catching up to do”.
Terry Betts, managing director at mid-market VAR CCS Media, said January had been a good month, with sales climbing by 20 per cent.
However, he added: “Quite a few reports have said we’re heading into a recession, and with more resellers going into insolvency than ever, 2007 will be a tough year.”
IDC expects hardware sales to rise 5.3 per cent in 2007 and services by 5.6 per cent. Software sales are predicted to rise 7.4 per cent, driven by the shift towards industry-standard components in business computing.
The analyst’s figures also suggest the UK will consolidate its position as Europe’s top dog in 2007. The total EMEA IT market is expected to increase 4.8 per cent to €733bn, less than the 5.6 per cent rise seen last year, due to slowing telecoms growth.