IT spending in Phl seen growing 10% in 2015

MANILA, Philippines - International Data Corp. (IDC) sees consumer spending on information technology (IT) in the Philippines growing by double-digit levels next year amid the country’s robust economic growth.

In a report, IDC said the country’s IT spending would grow 10.1 percent next year despite weather disturbances and port congestion.

 “The IT spending for 2015 in the Philippines is looking at a healthy performance and is expected to grow 10.1 percent. The strongest increase is in the area of smartphones, followed by midrange enterprise servers, networking equipment, broad IT services, and software needs,” IDC said.

The positive outlook in the country’s economic indicators, IDC said, would translate to vibrant spending from consumer sector indicating an ongoing change in the nature of spending.

The Philippines has a large and growing working-age population, and half of the population is under the age of 24.

IDC Philippines research manager and country lead Jubert Daniel Alberto said the company’s Continuum Survey finds huge majority of Philippine companies looking to increase information and communication technology (ICT) budget and spending in 2015.

“While the country’s ICT spending may also be impacted by inhibiting factors such as natural disasters and port congestion, the effects of these will be limited in short-term period only,” he said.

With the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) seen to grow at 6.3 percent in 2015, IDC believes the IT industry in 2015 would continue to ride the growth momentum recorded over the recent years.

The economic outlook for the Philippines is underpinned by robust growth in domestic demand, strong infrastructure spending, and the implementation of structural economic reforms.

 “IDC believes the country’s rosy economic outlook, growing ICT demand from the consumer and SME sectors, and the increasing requirement for the 3rd Platform technologies will shore up the Philippine ICT industry in 2015,” he added.

IDC sees IT spending in the Philippines growing by 11.4 percent to $6.76 billion this year driven by strong consumer spending, healthy economic fundamentals, and the most recent, credit grade improvement.

Of the total amount, about 76 percent would be contributed by hardware followed by services with 18 percent, and software with seven percent.

“The ‘changing of the guards’ in the home front has deeply transformed IT spending habits that will cause a stronger demand for mobility, devices, services, and applications across the country,” IDC said.

He cited the increasing ICT demand from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and continued strong business process outsourcing (BPO) performance to push ICT spending.