The Japan virtual client solutions market will see a 14.1% growth, reaching JPY 215.8bn ($2.8bn) in 2011, compared to the last year, according to a study by International Data Corporation (IDC) Japan.

The IDC study, Japan Virtual Client Computing 2011-2015 Forecast and Second-Half 2010 Analysis: The Effect of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake analyses trends in the domestic client virtualisation market in the second half of 2011, describes the situation of the market, and provides forecasts.

The research firm said the gains will be relatively small in this year due to the earthquake, but the market will see a sharp expansion in demand beginning in 2012 as companies begin addressing business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) needs.

IDC survey results for the second half of 2010 from July to December, has forecasted the market to reach JNY842.5bn (10.9bn) in 2015 with a 34.8% growth rate for the 2010-2015 period.

The client terminal virtualisation rate was a whopping 13.5% in 2010, a year of significant progress, and IDC estimates that it will reach 15.7% in 2011 and 37% in 2015.

Meanwhile, in the country’s client virtualisation software market, 2010 shipping licenses grew by 31% to 740,000 licenses, and IDC estimates that the earthquake will limit license growth for the entire year 2011 to 14.3% at 840,000 licenses.

The pre-earthquake forecast for 2011 Japan virtual client solutions market had been revised downwards by IDC, but the market is expected to recover during the latter half of the year, with a market expansion from 2012 onwards.

In 2012, the market is forecasted to see a 75.8% growth, and growth will be 17.8% reaching 2.71 million licenses for 2015.

The 2010-2015 growth is forecast to be at 29.7%, with the growth high for desktop virtualisation during this period, with an estimated growth rate of 63.5%.

This market segment of the market is forecast to reach 1.13 million licenses in 2015, giving it a 41.8% share of client virtualisation.