Strong Results in 2006 Fuels Further Innovation Alongside Expansion of Products and Services at IDC in Asia/Pacific

March 01, 2007

Singapore and Hong Kong, March 01, 2007 – IDC reported strong results for 2006, including double-digit revenue gains and solid growth for all of the company's products and services in Asia Pacific. With hyper disruption and intense competition in the ICT marketplace, healthy demand for market intelligence continues to drive IDC's ongoing investments in product development, addition of domain analysts, coverage of new geographies and expansion of industry-specific views. IDC plans to continue the expansion of its research products, worldwide and regional coverage in 2007.

“IDC is rapidly expanding its scope into industry research, consulting and Go-to-Market services to better assist our clients to address their business needs in the dynamic and rapidly evolving marketplace in Asia Pacific,” says Eva Au, Managing Director for IDC Asia/Pacific. “Our clients are requesting customized solutions to address the growing complexity and business needs of a particular industry versus a suite of horizontal solutions."

"In the IT & Telecom research market IDC's investment in new products is quite impressive as compared to many companies in this sector," says Louise Garnett, Vice President and Lead Analyst at Outsell, Inc., a market research and advisory company that focuses on the entire information industry, worldwide. " IDC is proving its commitment to new products to expand its business and provide customers the solutions they are seeking."

Through 2006, IDC increased its scope and coverage of core technology markets resulting in greater granularity of research penetrating to the city and sub-regional levels in India and China. IDC also strengthened its Telecommunications Research by launching studies and a suite of products that cover Managed Services and ICT Outsourcing, Application Networking and Optical Networking Equipment, and soon-to-be-launched coverage of the Unified Communications market.

IDC's emphasis on industry-specific research and expertise is evident from the growing expansion and investments in Industry Insights companies. Government Insights was launched in Asia/Pacific in 2006 to cater to the growing demand for information technology and innovation specific to the public sector and of vendors serving public sector organizations. Together with Financial Insights and Manufacturing Insights, IDC is driving inroads into vertical industries by expanding client-driven research offerings and industry roundtables and exclusive conferences.

With vendors ramping their efforts to identify and build strategic channels, alliances and partnerships to further enhance their coverage of the SMB sector, IDC is expanding its SMB and Partnering research programs to better equip clients with insights on the best practices in partner management. These include periodic dialogues, competitive benchmarking of reseller programs, and better understanding of end-user buying behavior and preferences.

IDC continues to maintain its acute understanding of ICT end-users through increased surveys into consumer behavior, usage patterns and adoption of Information Technology. A highly successful IDC survey is its annual Continuum Study that targets ICT end-users i n 14 countries across Asia/Pacific including Japan and provides pertinent data on organizations' IT set-ups, roadmaps, and spending. The study is in its 7 th year and will be completed in April 2007 with a total of 24,640 responses since its inception. Combined with over 100 conferences and customer specific events reaching ICT end-users across Asia Pacific in 2006 alone, IDC's influence with end-users is both extensive and growing.

Buoyed by the explosive China and India markets, IDC saw emerging countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam impacting the dynamics of the ecosystem as vendors increase their attention on these markets. To ensure that IDC has the best local knowledge in these emerging markets to serve its clients, strategic investments in headcount and local research presence have been committed in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

As the ICT industry enters into an era of innovation and disruptions, IDC will continue to provide highly relevant and superior market intelligence and advisory services to its clients to help them to adapt quickly to challenges and growth opportunities. At IDC's Directions, recognized as the industry's annual premier event that delivers an informative and actionable perspective of the issues shaping the technology industry, IDC will be addressing the growing uncertainties and disruptions in the technology market and present key growth opportunities available, through a compelling mix of keynotes, breakout sessions and one-to-one analyst meetings. For more details about Directions and the cities it would be presented in, please visit http://www.idc.com.sg/directions2007/default.asp

For more information about purchasing the research, please contact Selina Ang at +65-6829-7717 or sang@idc.com. For press enquiries, please contact Holly Fung at +852-2905-4225 or hfung@idc.com.

Contact

Chong Chee Kian
Events & Marketing Executive
Tel: +603-2169-7521
Fax : +603-2163-5098
Email:ckchong@idc.com