Small and medium businesses are expected to spend $444 billion globally on IT products and services in 2010, a growth rate of 5.2 percent over 2009, according to research firm TechAisle.
Within the SMBs, TechAisle predicted companies with 50-99 employees will grow the fastest, at 7.9 percent, while the biggest spenders will be those companies with 100-249 employees, with $100 billion in IT spend this year.
The research firm noted that while SMBs are considered to be a growth engine for IT, “the looming possibility of a double dip in the U.S. and other economies seems to be putting the skids on this growth market."
The silver lining will come from emerging-market countries where IT spend by SMBs will show a growth rate of 8.2 percent in 2010 over 2009. Among the emerging market countries, BRIC country SMBs will spend $45 billion on IT in 2010, TechAisle said. Besides Brazil, Russia, India and China, other emerging-market countries with relatively higher SMB spend will be Mexico, South Africa, Poland, Malaysia, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Thailand and Philippines.
Computing hardware will account for 56 percent of IT Spend among emerging market SMBs, which are at an early stage of adopting IT. At a global level, share of computing hardware is expected to be 34 percent, while software will be at 19 percent.
Traditional IT spending among SMBs is slowing in mature markets; growth areas would include cloud computing but spend levels will be low, TechAisle reported.
