IDC Says Asia/Pacific Excluding Japan IT Market Will Remain The Bright Spot As Businesses Leverage IT To Drive Process Optimization And Competitive Share Of Wallet Growth In 2009

Kuala Lumpur, December 1, 2008 - Despite a recent downward adjustment in forecast for 2009, Asia/Pacific remains the bright spot in the global marketplace as businesses look towards leveraging IT to drive business process optimization and competitive share of wallet growth. The robust growth that Asia enjoyed over the last decade had led to strong financial positioning for many businesses and consumers. This has put Asia in a relatively favorable position to invest in IT to ride the current storm as well as to emerge competitively stronger when the economies turnaround. IDC today lowered its 2009 information technology spending (IT spending) forecast for the Asia/Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) region to 5.8% from its initial 9.5% ‘pre-crisis’ forecast in July 2008. Compared to the US and the rest of the world, APEJ is still in a good position. IDC expects IT spending in APEJ to reach US$195.6 billion, down from an earlier projection of US$201.4 billion.

"Strategic investments in IT will remain critical in achieving further efficiency and productivity gains and driving longer term growth of businesses", said Gary Koch, Associate Vice President of IDC’s Asia/Pacific IT Spending Research. "In a poll of nearly 400 enterprises in APEJ conducted during the last week of October, 80% of the respondents said that deploying products, services and solutions in an innovative way to save cost was the preferred option than buying low-priced equivalents."

This 'post-crisis' poll was conducted across the region to ascertain the impact the economic downturn had on business and to assess, if and where, budget reduction may take place. IDC found that 43% of the respondents had been asked by their HQ to improve profit margin in 2009. This directive came with the leading assumption that Asia/Pacific will fare better (if not much better) than its US, Europe and Japan counterparts. Many of the Asian business leaders IDC surveyed had indicated that cost savings alone will not be sufficient to achieve the higher budgeted profit level. In this slowing marketplace, in addition to cost management, businesses will target their competitors' installed base to acquire new customers for incremental revenue streams. Customer engagement and enhancement tools that leverage technology will help businesses to respond effectively to customer needs and improve efficiency/productivity of their client facing personnel and activities.

While over 50% expected Asia to contract at similar levels to US and Europe, more than 1/3 expected Asia to fare better. Belt tightening is expected to drive migration to technologies and solution that will support utility or consumption-based pricing. To this end, based on the same survey, some businesses had indicated that the spend on managed and cloud service would increase in 2009.

"FSI, Government, and Telco will remain the 3 largest tech spenders in 2009, while Manufacturing, Retail and Logistics/Shipping with their intensifying focus on cost management agenda, will mean a major shift from CAPEX to OPEX as well as the heightened need to streamline business processes," added Gary.

In the next 6 to 9 months, opportunities from the FSI vertical industry will come from institutions undergoing M&A, infrastructure optimization, and various tactical initiatives to retain existing customer bases. There will be great interest in solutions supporting risk management and compliance, as well as counter-cyclical solution areas such as collections and recovery, credit scoring, and portfolio and exposure analytics.

Islamic banking is another segment that may continue to do relatively well with liquidity flowing in from the Middle-East. This will benefit the FSI sector in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore (to a lesser extent). Asian central banks will infuse local money markets with cash, as well as push (regulate) banks to release credit to avoid a further liquidity crunch in the region.

Stimulus packages, if executed effectively, will mean aggressive public spending to stimulate demand and employment. IDC hence expects increased IT spending from the government, healthcare and education sectors.

IDC sees opportunity from the telco sector to come from 2 broad categories of players – in the longer term, CAPEX investments from cash rich or financially supported service providers to gain a competitive edge and, in the short term, non-CAPEX intensive investments from those who need to generate top line growth via new service offerings. These offerings will include SaaS, value-added services and managed services across all markets, and fixed and wireless in developing markets.

The Malaysian government is expected to cushion some negative impact with a series of different ICT related initiatives supporting domestic demand. The promotion of Malaysia as a potential shared services hub may continue to support business investments, however, the outlook for export of goods and services is weakening. Increasing unemployment levels and lower disposable income will likely lower consumer spend on IT. IDC expects the 2009 IT market value to be adjusted down by US$186 million to reach US$6 billion and the market growth reduced from 7.6% to 4.4%.

Gary said, "Despite the new realities of IT budgeting that Asia/Pacific organizations face in light of the current economic backdrop, IDC has noted historically that when a turnaround begins, these organizations traditionally are quick to ramp up IT expenditure to alleviate pent up technology requirements."

To find out more about IDC's insights into the impact of the economic meltdown on APJ IT spending and at the country level, please log on to IDC's webcast presented by Gary Koch. For purchasing IDC's IT spending research, please contact Ashadi Cahyadi at 6221- 520 3496/ 98 or acahyadi@idc.com or Andreas Widjajanta at 6221- 520 3496/ 98 or awidjajanta@idc.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editor

To get details of IDC's analysis of the "Impact of the Economic Meltdown on APJ IT Spending", please log on to IDC's webcast presented by Gary Koch, Associate Vice President, IDC Asia/Pacific IT Spending Research. This webcast is available for viewing from November 24, 2008 to January 23, 2009.

To view the webcast, please follow these steps:
1. Log on to IDC's IDC's Webcast Portal to register.
2. Once you have registered, you will be directed to a page which lists IDC’s complimentary webcasts and other webcasts available for purchase
3. By registering only once, you will be able to access the Webcast Portal for future webcasts without having to register again.

About IDC

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Contact

For more information, contact:

Gary Koch
Associate Vice President, IDC Asia/Pacific IT Spending Research
Email:gkoch@idc.com

Gowri Mohanadas
Regional Sr. Marketing & Media Relations Executive
Tel: +603-2169-7533
Fax: +603-2163-5098
Email:gmohanadas@idc.com

Belinda Yap
Senior Executive, Events and Marketing Services
Tel: +603-2169-7521
Fax: +603-2163-5098
Email:byap@idc.com