Demand for ICT products and services doesn’t seem to have suffered the effects of the progressive downturn of the economies of major countries. The sector in fact has a solid foundation based on growth in investments and infrastructure on behalf of businesses, on sustained consumer demand for increasingly advanced digital instruments and on a significant increase in the number of new individual and businesses users in emerging countries.
During 2007 the world telecommunications market grew 5.2% for a total of 1,748.8 billion dollars, maintaining a similar trend to the previous year. A closer look at the two constituents of the market in comparison with the results for 2006 shows considerable changes: the services segment increased slightly, while the equipment sector slowed considerably going from +11.1% in 2006 to +5.5% in 2007 (fig. 4).
The global IT market had yet another positive year in 2007 with growth scarcely influenced by the slowing of major economies in the second half of the year. The IT market reached 1,136 billion dollars in value, growing at a similar rate (5.9%) to the previous year, setting a new record since the previous top performance of 2001 (fig. 6). The global IT market has grown constantly since 2002, with a sharper acceleration dating back to 2004 which was driven by the strong increase in demand from emerging countries, and subsequently stabilised at a high rate between 2005 and 2007.
The European TLC market in 2007 had a particularly positive performance with growth at 8.2%. Bearing in mind the effect of the strong revaluation of the Euro over the Dollar, it must be noted that Europe still had the highest level of growth of all regions. In the services sector Europe reached 409.3 billion dollars in value – an increment of 8.9% – driven primarily by the mobile segment. Also the equipment market improved compared to 2006 growing at 4.9%.
The IT market in Europe grew 4.8% in 2007 against 3.9% in 2006, reaching 346 billion euro in value in a macroeconomic context which, for most of the year, stayed positive.
The audio-video sector is undergoing what is most probably one the most radical changes in the last 50 years, with an exponential growth of diverse offerings, an increasingly segmented audience and new channels and forms of fruition.
The ICT market in Italy for 2007 The ICT market slowed down considerably in 2007 due to the telecommunications sector, whose performance has weakened noticeably over the past 3 years. This has been caused by intense competition between operators, regulatory intervention, and the introduction of new technologies such as IP telephony, the effects of which have been to progressively reduce billing rates.
2007 was a particularly difficult period for the Italian telecoms sector. This was primarily due to both market conditions and regulatory intervention.
The TLC market in Italy
2007 was a particularly difficult period for the Italian telecoms sector. This was primarily due to both market conditions and regulatory intervention. The primary causes of this were both market activity and regulatory intervention. In the market, the main factors were:
major changes in shareholder groupings;
market start-up for mobile operators;
the establishment of new fixed/mobile convergent services, mobile broadband, and an increase in the availability of televisual services and IP-TV platforms which represent an important strategic asset for carriers.
As in most other technologically advanced countries, the development of the Italian digital media market must be viewed in the context of the now well-defined performance of network television and the growing market for pay TV services.
In 2007 the Italian IT market showed more sustained growth than in 2006, in line with events in other major countries, however the gap in growth continued to widen. The market in Italy expanded by 2% compared to Europe’s 4.7%, increasing the differential from 2.3% in 2006 to 2.7% in 2007.
Business Intelligence In 2007, the Business Intelligence market had a positive trend, with growth at 7.7%, an improvement on the previous year, and a total value of 436 million euro, of which 294 was for services (an increase of 7.3%).
ICT convergence in user businesses The ICT outsourcing market has increased once again its rate of growth (+5.0% to €3,174.4 million), although this is largely due to the telecommunications sector (+19% to €595 million). While the telecommunications segment benefits from new contracts with large clients and spreads into more strategic areas (even market values show how this segment is still at its initial stages), IT outsourcing, which, at least in terms of infrastructure, is a more mature market, has performed more in line with previous years (+2.2% to €2,579 million).
The potential of Mobile and Wireless (M&W) solutions in supporting Business activities are considerable: the scope and depth of applications, clear benefits, high level of acceptance on behalf of users, availability of mature technology and solutions and, in many cases, an interesting Return On Investment. However, there has been limited adoption of these solutions on behalf of both private and public organisations leaving the enormous “potential” virtually untapped.
The B2c eCommerce market in 2007 in the United States had a similar performance to the previous two years and reached 250 billion dollars, growing 20% compared to the over 200 billion dollars of 2006. Forecasts from leading research groups predict that the US market will be worth 380 billion dollars in 2011 with an annual growth of about 15%.
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