Indian IT services mkt clocks 7.3% growth in H1

Bengaluru: Indian enterprises continue their digital transformation journey amid the pandemic, pushing up the growth of India's IT services market by 7.3 per cent in the first half of 2021, a report by IDC showed. Growth of IT services market in the first half of last year was at 5.7 per cent.

Overall, the Indian IT and business services market was valued at $6.96 billion and recorded a 6.4 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth in the January-June period, compared to 5.1 per cent in the first half of 2020, according to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) worldwide semi-annual services tracker.

"Verticals like government and manufacturing, which delayed IT investments in 2020, hiked up their IT spend in H1 2021, and enterprises in the country continued to increasingly depend on IT service providers for solutions in areas like cloud, security, artificial intelligence, analytics, etc.," said Harish Krishnakumar, senior market analyst, IT Services, IDC India.

During the first half of this year, hosted application management and hosted infrastructure services continued to record the highest growth rates as many enterprises continued to migrate their applications to the cloud. Therefore, offerings like system integration and network consulting integration also witnessed an increased demand, as enterprises ramped up their investments in application modernization and network transformation initiatives during this cycle, the report said.

"H1 2021 turned out to be the year that showcased enterprise resiliency strengthen at a remarkable pace. Most enterprises witnessed a bounce back with business reaching the pre-pandemic situation," said Shweta Baidya, senior research manager, enterprise software and ICT services, IDC India. The report also pointed out that the IT and business services market is likely to witness increased momentum in the coming quarters on the back of revival of Indian economy. Increased spending in cloud, security and digital technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, data analytics, cloud computing will drive this trend.

The technology research firm pointed out that the IT and business services market is projected to reach $19.93 billion by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of 8.2 per cent between 2020-25 in India.