Top analysts weigh in on ICT sector in 2010

MANILA, Philippines – Two leading analyst groups, IDC and Gartner, have brought out their informed reports and surveys that set the stage for what the IT, consumer electronics and telecommunications sector can expect in the next 12 months.

Although the global economy is still shaky at best, the high-profile tech industry expects to slowly get back on its feet next year, research firm Gartner predicts.

In its report called “Signs of Improvement for End-User Electronics Recovery,” Gartner says it sees signs of recovery leading to 2010 as triggered by seasonal buying patterns in the PC market during the third quarter of 2009. Gartner’s sees the PC, mobile phone and consumer electronics to be the first sectors of the IT industry to rise from the ashes of the 2009 recession.

After bottoming out in the first quarter of 2009, the PC sector should enjoy a sustainable recovery in the third quarter of 2010, Gartner says in its report.

Computer sales will continue to be constrained by slow growth in IT spending, but consumer demand has held up better than expected and is likely to continue to rise. Gartner has revised its forecast for PC sales upward, anticipating good performance in the United States and China.

Cellphones, meanwhile, will be the first area to show sustainable growth by the first quarter of 2010. Gartner sees this sector getting out of the red with the continuous popularity of smartphones and steady demand for mobile phones in emerging markets.

The consumer electronics business, in general, is still in limbo but it could post some growth by the second quarter of next year. Gartner believes this sector will only be able to return to pre-recession levels in the first quarter of 2011 as the damage from the current industry recession will continue to be felt for a long time.

IDC’s crystal ball

IDC, for its part, has done several programs that checked the sentiment and buying behavior of organizations across the Asia-Pacific region. IDC’s Recovery Watch Program, initiated in October 2008 after the Lehman Brothers collapse, looked at how IT budgets are being developed and how it affects organizations’ buying process.

A recent poll of over a thousand seasoned executives from the region revealed three trends that are high on CEOs’ and CIOs’ agenda. These are business process automation and optimization, cost savings and a more effective way to respond to a new landscape.

IDC also keeps a checklist for CIOs in 2010 which summarizes key trends that will impact the industry and the solutions that would go hand in hand in underpinning and enabling those trends. In this checklist, IDC noted strategic initiatives to be taken by different sectors.

Governments across Asia, for example, will be placing intelligent city planning at the forefront of national agendas, said Cort Isernhagen, vice president of IDC Industry Insights.

Banks, on the other hand, will make focused efforts and dedicated investments in customer-centric initiatives, he said. The manufacturing sector, meanwhile, will focus on effective product design and development instead of just their supply chain processes, he added.

To come up with its Top 10 ICT predictions in 2010, IDC said it followed four criteria: the availability of technology for commercial use, the impact on the enterprise in terms of growth and spending in ICT, potential disruptive impact on vendor’s performance in the market, and some changes that are not obvious or “wild card factors, if you will,” said Isernhagen.

IDC has yet to release its full list of top predictions, but Isernhagen issued the following as a teaser:

• Increase in cloud computing in the Asia-Pacific and its impact on service-level agreements, particularly for telecommunications carriers in the region;

• Increase in the use of analytics as a business tool for cost analysis and for complying with regulatory requirements;

• Rise of social media networks as a conventional business tool for companies in the region.

• With the transition to dynamic data centers and virtualization, the industry will see converged fabric emerging as the centerpiece of that transformation. –Alma Buelva (The Philippine Star)