November 9 (SeeNews) - Kosovo's IT market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.1% in the next four years to reach $144.84 million (97.6 million euro) in 2013, market intelligence and advisory company IDC Adriatics said.
"The global economic and financial crisis only mildly affected the country's IT market in 2009, with a slight year-on-year decline mainly due to strong results in the previous year. Some year-on-year increase in IT spending will be evident in 2010, accelerating to double-digit growth in the following three years," IDC Adriatics Managing Director Boris Zitnik said in a statement posted on the company’s website (www.idc-adriatics.com).
Kosovo is poised to invest in IT in a number of areas, such as the tax and tariff systems, the land registry, the judicial system, healthcare and education, etc.
IT spending in Kosovo continued to grow solidly last year, primarily due to several large projects, according to a recent IDC research report.
The IT market in Kosovo totaled $98.23 million in 2008, representing year-on-year growth of 15.3% in U.S. dollars. Measured in local currency, the market expanded 7.8% over 2007, which was also a strong year. The telecomunications, government, banking, and utilities verticals remained the key markets driving Kosovo IT spending in 2008.
"IT spending in the country stemmed mainly from two large projects that started in 2007 – the second phase of an infrastructure and services upgrade project for mobile operator iPKO, and large IT procurements by the EU mission in Kosovo," Zitnik said.
IT services provision expanded 22.2% year on year in Kosovo last year, while packaged software shipments grew 9.2%. Hardcopy peripherals showed the steepest growth – 57.6% in volume and 133.7% in value. Hardware accounted for 73.9% of overall IT spending, IT services for 13.7%, and packaged software for the remaining 12.4%. The high share of hardware spending indicates that that Kosovo is in the early stages of its informatisation, IDC said.
($=0.6735 euro)