IDC has predicted a healthy Philippine ICT spending performance in 2014, given the rosy outlook in the country’s economic indicators, the need for companies to find new and effective ways to reach customers, as well as the vibrant spending from the consumer sector.
In the enterprise sector, the research firm said ICT spending will be heavily impacted by mobility, cloud, big data/analytics and social business. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are also increasing demand for ICT products and services.
“Based on IDC’s annual Continuum survey, almost 60% of the companies in the Philippines will be more aggressive in their IT expenditure in the coming 12 months compared to a year ago. This would translate to a 20-45% overall increase in total IT spending,” Jubert Alberto, research manager, IDC, said.
In the consumer sector, spending on smartphones and tablets alone are expected to increase 22% and 40%, respectively, which is transforming IT spending habits. Alberto said the younger segment of the population makes up the new workforce and these consumers are the driving force behind the heavy traffic in the social networking sites.
“They have the utmost need to be connected, updated, informed and entertained. In most cases, they also have lower number of dependents. All these characteristics point to stronger demand for anything mobile, whether devices, services or applications,” he said.
These combined factors will drive the Philippine IT industry to grow by 11% in 2014, which translates to a total of $6.76 billion in total IT spending. Of this, spending on hardware will take about 76%, while software and services account for 7% and 18%, respectively.