India’s government IT spending will increase 8.9% in 2018

India’s IT spending in the Indian government sector is projected to reach $8.5 billion in 2018, an increase of 8.9 per cent from 2017 estimated spending of $7.8 billion according to Gartner.

Software and IT services continue to exhibit strong growth with device spending continuing to drive the majority of the overall IT spending in the Indian government sector. Software spending is projected to growth 15.6 per cent in 2017 and will grow another 15.1 per cent in 2018 to reach $1.2 billion. IT services spending is on pace to grow 15.3 per cent in 2017 to total $2 billion in 2017, and increase 13.8 per cent in 2018 to reach $2.3 billion.

“Spending on devices, which includes printers/copiers/MFPs, mobile devices, PCs and tablets is estimated to see the highest growth in 2017, with an increase in spending by nearly 21 percent to reach $1 billion,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst, Gartner.

“This will further increase by another 9.4 percent to reach $1.1 billion in 2018,” added Sau.

“The Indian government sector is picking up pace again after the brief slowdown in the past two quarters due to effects reverberated by demonetization and a drop in industrial production,” said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, managing vice president at Gartner India.

Several initiatives by the government, such as the Make in India, Start-up India, Skill India, and the corresponding policy frameworks to support these initiatives, such as the new electronics policy, software product policy, data security and protection policy, will have a positive effect on government IT spending in the near future. However, the chief among all these initiatives is the Digital India programme.

“The Digital India programme, which aims to transform the country into a digitally-empowered society and knowledge economy, will call for technology investments in the backbone infrastructure, advanced data analytics, digital security, digital payment and e-commerce infrastructures, digitally-enabled G2G, G2B and G2C services, and score of other related services,” said Ramamoorthy.

“While focusing on citizen services is an essential element of the digital strategy, the main and more sustainable benefits will come to the government from the transformation of its internal data and processes,” commented Sau.