Canalys: Vendor giants on course for growth

Market watcher tips technology giants to buck the economic trend, thanks to growing demand for cloud and tablets

Canalys is predicting double-digit revenue growth for the channel's biggest vendors, as demand for mobile devices and cloud services soars this year.

The market watcher's IT Titans Index tracks the financial performance of 12 vendor giants, which it claims represent the overhaul health of the technology industry.

They are Cisco, Dell, EMC, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Lexmark, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

According to the analyst's findings, the group's 2011 revenue was up 16 per cent on the previous year.

This has been attributed to the high demand for processors, mobile devices and enterprise software during the first six months of 2011.

Good growth was also reported during the second half of last year, despite the economic uncertainty in the eurozone. Canalys put this down to the financial performance of Apple, Google and Intel, in particular.

The analyst claims the group's financial momentum will continue into 2012, thanks to the soaring demand for mobile products and cloud services.

Alex Smith, senior analyst at Canalys, said that despite concerns about the state of the global economy, the titans are on course to achieve 11 per cent growth this year.

"Fears of a global economic meltdown triggered by the European debt crisis have subsided since peaking at the end of September," said Smith.

"Key indicators such as inter-bank lending and government bond yields are improving daily. Stock markets remain upbeat, particularly for tech companies as new IPOs emerge."

The analyst said economic conditions in Europe will remain tough in 2012, but expects US growth to be stronger than last year.

"As with GDP growth rates, IT investment projections tend to be too reflective of past economic and technology trends [and] disproportionately shaped by observations of western markets," added Smith.

"Assessing forward-looking economic indicators, changing IT consumption models and consumer demand for technology point to stronger growth than many may have anticipated for 2012."