Building on a strong customer base, and forecast to record consistently high annual growth until 2011, the enterprise application integration (EAI) services market will emerge as the largest opportunity in Asia/Pacific's (excluding Japan) IT services space, according to information released by Springboard Research.
Springboard estimated that the EAI services market will grow from $US5 billion in 2007 to $US7.8 billion by 2011, registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 per cent between 2007 and 2011. On the other hand, enterprise IT outsourcing --currently the largest market opportunity -- will slip to second place by 2011 with a market size of $US7.2 billion, recording the lowest CAGR of all markets, at seven per cent.
For additional perspective, consider that the fastest growing market segments in the region are predicted to be application hosting services and infrastructure hosting, forecast to register CAGRs of 19 per cent, and 16.3 per cent, respectively, during the period under review.
"Enterprise and infrastructure application integration services are the two most attractive markets in Asia/Pacific's Services space," said Phil Hassey, vice president for services research at Springboard Research. "Both have high levels of growth and an increasingly sophisticated customer base, and clearly score higher than enterprise IT outsourcing, which is being outpaced in growth terms as a market opportunity when compared to other markets."
Springboard also added that as a broad group, infrastructure services will continue to represent the largest component of the Asia/Pacific IT market with its size reaching $US31.6 billion, or 57 per cent of the overall market in 2011. However, the fastest growing group is application services, which measured $US13.3 billion, or 35 per cent of the market in 2007, and is expected to reach $US21.2 billion in 2011, or 38 per cent, registering a 12.2 per cent CAGR. Overall, Springboard forecast the IT services market to reach $US55.9 billion by 2011. "Domination of this infrastructure services market is the target for Hewlett-Packard following its acquisition of EDS. It will be very strongly positioned in this marketplace and will create significant discomfort across the competition in this marketplace", Hassey said.
Len Rust is publisher of The Rust Report