Worldwide revenues for IT Services and business consulting services totaled $475 billion in the first half of 2017, an increase of 4.0 per cent year-over-year, according to the International Data Corp. latest report.
IDC expects worldwide services revenues to surpass $1.0 trillion in 2018.
While IT Services delivered more than two thirds of overall services revenue in the first half of 2017, spending on business services grew faster than the overall market at 6.0 per cent year-over-year. IT services revenues were largely driven by spending on technology outsourcing and project-oriented services, such as application development and systems and network implementation. Business services spending was led by business process outsourcing and business consulting services.
The largest of the 14 foundation markets IDC uses to analyze end-user spending and vendor revenue was business process outsourcing with the first half of 2017 revenues of $92.9 billion. Systems integration was the second largest foundation market at $62.1 billion. Business consulting was the third largest foundation market in the first half, followed by IT outsourcing and software deploy and support services. The fastest growing markets were hosting infrastructure services (9.8 per cent growth) and business consulting (8.2 per cent growth). IT outsourcing was the only foundation market to experience declining revenues in the first half of 2017.
On a geographic basis, the U.S. was the largest services market with revenues of $216.7 billion. Western Europe was the second largest region, followed by Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ). The markets with the fastest year-over-year growth in the first half were APeJ, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and the U.S. Only two of the eight regions (Japan and the Middle East & Africa) recorded a decline in services revenue in the first half of the year.
IDC research manager Lisa Nagamine said steady growth in the services market is largely driven by a continued demand for digital solutions with cloud-related services expected to surpass the $100 billion mark this year.