IDC Predicts Turkey’s Total ICT Spend Will Cross $22 Billion in 2017

IDC Predicts Turkey’s Total ICT Spend Will Cross $22 Billion in 2017
Fotolia

ICT spending in Turkey is forecast to total $22.3 billion in 2017, according to the latest insights presented recently by IDC. Hosting its annual 'IDC Predictions' event at Microsoft Türkiye's headquarters in Istanbul, the global technology research and consulting services firm gathered the country's leading CIOs and ICT vendors together to talk about their investment plans for the year ahead.

IDC expects Turkey's IT market to total $10.9 billion in 2017, matching the 1.9% year-on-year growth rate seen in 2016. Reducing CAPEX will be a major priority for all organizations, and this situation will see OPEX-driven business models such as cloud and outsourcing services gain increasing favor. As such, the IT services and software segments will be the fastest-growing segments of the Turkish IT market in 2017, with IDC forecasting year-on-year growth rates of 7.1% and 6.2%, respectively.

"The digital transformation efforts of the country's biggest-spending organizations will continue in 2017, albeit at a slower pace than initially planned," says Nevin Cizmeciogullari, IDC's country manager for Turkey. "The need for greater cost optimization - mainly due to constrained IT budgets - will also drive spending around software and IT services, while infrastructure spending in the telecommunications, finance, healthcare, education, and retail sectors - as well as by some public departments - will continue to move forward in 2017.

In terms of industries, IDC expects the healthcare, utilities, and transportation sectors to see the highest rates of spending growth in 2017, while communications, finance, manufacturing, and government will be the year's biggest spenders. The retail sector will face a challenging year as profitability concerns lead some market players to downsize their operations, either by reducing their headcounts or decreasing their number of branches (or both).

Cloud will accelerate to a new level of adoption in 2017, with increased competition among cloud providers set to drive aggressive pricing, bundling, and customer service.

Big data analytics will become increasingly more predictive than descriptive in nature, driving new use cases around exploration and discovery, performance management, and operational intelligence.

Maintaining security will continue to be the primary challenge facing the country's CIOs, with spending on security solutions by Turkish organizations set to cross the $230 million mark in 2017.

Digital transformation efforts will continue to gain momentum in Turkey, with IDC research showing that nearly 70% of organizations in the country are already planning or about to start such initiatives.

Smart city initiatives will take on a more pragmatic approach in 2017, with governments and their partners looking to enable innovative transportation, citizen engagement, and emergency response services that drive tangible improvements in the lives of their residents.