The Indian IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) market would cross Rs 1 lakh crore in revenue in 2008, while telecom will see fixed-line broadband gain around this year, according to forecasts by analyst firm IDC.

The domestic IT/ITeS market will grow at 24% in 2008 to touch Rs 1.1 lakh crore. “By posting a substantial jump in the domestic IT/ITeS market since 2002, the industry is now onto a new growth trajectory. Indian IT market will come of age in 2008, on the back of higher demand for sophisticated enterprise and consumer services in the domestic market.

While key market segments are growing at a healthy pace, emerging verticals like government also hold a lot of potential. IDC said the Indian consumer’s digital experience will hit the next level this year. This would be driven by the growth of fixed-line broadband, while mobile phone would remain a useful alternative Internet access device. In the first half of 2008, all major operators are expected to offer broadband with a speed of up to 8 MB per second to consumers in metros and some other key cities.

The firm also forecast that the Web 2.0 market would take off in India in 2008 with greater user awareness and participation. The market is also set for shakeouts and a possible string of consolidations this year. Virtualisation would gain ground among Indian enterprises, with IDC expecting share of virtualised servers to double from the current 22% to 45% by 2008-end.

Also, heightened business risk perceptions and security concerns will drive increased investments into a range of enterprise-wide and client-centric devices and applications. The year 2008 would also witness a major expansion of software-as-a-service (SaaS) as a way to accelerate small and medium business (SMB) penetration and service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption.

This will be helped by the emergence of Indian “niche vendors” as well as multinational application software players, IDC said. Globally, IT market growth will be lower at a moderate 5.5-6%, down from 2007’s 6.9%, with a significant US market downside risk. According to IDC’s Global Research Operation (GRO) team, the earliest impact from economic downturns is felt, historically, in the hardware sector, with software impact lagging by one or two quarters and services impact more gradual. Source: Economics Times