IT spending by small and medium-sized companies in Europe is set to explode, according to industry analyst Datamonitor. A recent Datamonitor survey reveals that European companies with fewer than 500 employees will spend $46.7bn on technology in 1998. Germany will once again set the pace. There are 2.8 million such companies in Germany, who will spend $14.6bn on IT this year. Datamonitor says the smaller German firms tend to be involved in sectors with greater levels of information complexity, such as finance and business services. To better manage this information, they are forced to adopt IT practices earlier than other markets. Italy has 4.7 million firms in the same sector, the largest number in Europe, and they spent just $3.7bn on IT, accounting for an 8% share of the market. In contrast, UK and France – both of which have 3.7 million companies of this size – account for 21% and 19% of the market respectively. UK companies will spend $9.7bn this year, while French firms, Datamonitor predicts, will spend $8.8bn on IT. Datamonitor predicts that spending on PCs will account for 39% of European small and medium-sized enterprise IT spend this year. The companies will invest $18.3bn on PCs, almost twice that spent on software ($9.82bn) or services ($9.08bn). Software sales will account for 21% and services 20% of small and medium-sized enterprise IT spend.
Computer Business Review.
