India’s information and communications tech market may be worth $144 bn in 3 years: GlobalData

The ICT (information and communications technology) market in India is expected to touch $144 billion by 2023, driven by the accelerating adoption of emerging technologies, said a report by data analytics and consulting platform GlobalData.

The ICT market was worth $101 billion in 2018 -- thus, the projection represents a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 7.2%, the firm said in a media statement. The growth will be driven by the increased adoption of IT services across various verticals in the country and is among the fastest-growing IT markets in the world. 

According to the report, the services segment is expected to account for nearly 52% of the overall ICT spending in India in 2023. GlobalData said that the transformation of the Indian IT industry has led to the transition of the economy as well, with the IT industry shifting from enterprise servicing to becoming an enterprise solutions provider.

“Strong adoption of emerging technologies such as SMAC (social media, mobility, analytics and cloud) and AI (artificial intelligence), along with favourable government policies that envision Digital India are the key driving factors fostering this growth,” Sunil Kumar Verma, lead ICT analyst at GlobalData, said.

Enterprises across different verticals are embracing different IT offerings through platforms, products and process automation to drive their growth, the report said. Digital transformation initiatives, such as cloud-workload migrations, business process automation and the upgradation of legacy IT infrastructure, are all contributing to the increased ICT spending, it added.

“With core industry verticals in India such as energy, manufacturing and construction aligning their business model with an IT-driven approach, the spending is bound to grow. An increasing number of enterprises are adopting the agile business operating model and are striving to achieve a healthy mix of IT adoption spend and cost-rationalisation initiatives,” Verma said. 

The overall ICT spending in the services segment is estimated to grow around $24 billion during 2018-2023, the report said. The spending on hardware and software/applications is estimated to grow to around $10 billion-$8.4 billion during the same period, it added.