Telkom target top IT player
BMI-T’s IT Market Sizing and Forecast Report 2005-2010 has identified Business Connexion as the largest player with 12.2% of the market, followed by GijimaAST (7.7%) and arivia.kom (7.5%).
BMI-T estimates the IT market to be valued at R45.8bn and expects steady expansion to 2010 with a compound annual growth rate of 5.8% pushing the market value to R60.8bn.
IT services represent 39.8% of the total market, with outsourcing the largest segment of IT services (41.4%), followed by deploy and support (25.4%) and systems integration (18.9%).
According to Natalie Bryden, report author and senior analyst in BMI-T’s Services Division, growth of 4.4% took the market from R43.9bn in 2004 to R45.8bn in 2005.
"Drivers behind this growth include the acceleration in network convergence, the requirement for compliance with business regulations [Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II and King 2], and a move towards more dynamic technology enabled by services-oriented architecture.
"With more companies showing an interest in adopting wireless technologies, mobile technologies also provide opportunities for organisations to improve productivity and increase revenues, and are likely to enjoy increased adoption," she said.
Bryden added that key vertical segments including education, healthcare and government agencies are expected to increase IT spending in the medium term.
"Government is planning to spend billions on infrastructure in the next few years as a part of (its growth plan) Asgisa. This infrastructure spend in the transportation sector will also require expenditure on IT."
She also noted that with intense competition on home soil, many larger services players are expanding into Africa. "These strategies seem to be paying off, albeit slowly. In most instances, partnerships with foreign firms have smoothed the process of crossing into unknown territory."
Specifically, the IT services market reached R18.2bn in 2005, showing a year-on-year growth of 4.8%, and accounted for 39.8% of the total IT expenditure.
Combined IT outsourcing delivered the strongest growth followed by the IT training and education sector at 7.6%.
Bryden added outsourcing continues to shape the growth of the services market.
"The growth of comprehensive outsourcing deals has slowed, while discrete managed services such as application management, and desktop, network, or storage management are growing faster. The size of the average outsourcing contract is declining.
"In previous years IT outsourcing projects were large multi-year contracts. In 2005, more deals were in the region of R30m to R50m.
"There is a trend for companies to move away from total outsourcing to identifying non-competitive components of the IT infrastructure to specialists, which can create economies of scale and offer improved service.
"This includes hardware support as well as non-core applications," she said.
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