Local IT Market
It has been predicted that the Korean IT market will grow 3.0% this year to reach 20.17 trillion won (US$19.08 billion) in size. Market research firm KRG said on January 12 that the growth of the corporate IT market will be led by a recovery of the global economy and the projects which were put on hold last year.
According to KRG, the local IT market grew just 2.0% from a year earlier in 2013 to 19.591 trillion won (US$18.533 billion) due to the domestic recession, sluggish performance on the part of middle-standing enterprises, and an investment divide in the IT sector. However, the firm forecast that export conditions and capital expenditures will show some improvement this year amid a global economic recovery.
By industrial segment, the hardware sector is expected to post a negative growth of 1.3% to 5.085 trillion won (US$4.810 billion). The server and PC markets are likely to face decreasing demand, although more smart devices are predicted to be sold based on the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. Meanwhile, the software and solution markets was forecast to reach 3.708 trillion won (US$3.508 billion) with a year-on-year growth rate of 5.6%, thanks to the increasing demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP), big data, cloud computing, and data security solutions.
The company added that the IT service segment is expected to grow 4.1% to 11.377 trillion won (US$10.762 billion) in 2014 with the expansion of the automobile, medical, and education markets, and the enhancement of the efficiency of IT infrastructure will be a major issue.