Tech spending in India poised to grow by 9.6% this year

Bengaluru: Tech spending in India is poised to grow by 9.6 per cent this year and the IT spending growth is set to regain pre-pandemic levels, with 2024 expected to be even better, a report has shown.

The Indian economy is poised for a 0.8 per cent growth in the 2023 fiscal year, according to Forrester's 'IndiaTech Market Outlook for 2023 and 2024'.

Nevertheless, it still faces challenges from a falling rupee and increasing current account deficit due to geopolitical events such as the Ukraine war.

According to the report, tech outsourcing and hardware maintenance will see sharp growth.

"Indian companies are moving from a 100 percent-owned IT model to a project-based outsourced model as new technologies capture the imagination of consumers and businesses," the findings showed.

Indian tech leaders no longer want to own, build, maintain, and run products on new technologies completely by themselves.

Telecom will see major investments. In the past year, 5G announcements and investments in technologies like IoT, Web3, the metaverse, AI, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) have had a major impact on telecommunications.

However, software and tech consulting and systems integration will slow down.

"Software spending growth will dip slightly, from 15 per cent in 2022 to 14.5 per cent in 2023," said the report. Spending growth in tech consulting and systems integration will remain high although it will slip a bit, from 11 per cent in 2022 to 10.2 per cent in 2023, primarily due to increases in the adoption of software as a service (SaaS) and outsourcing of major IT operations or implementations, it added.

"Indian companies find themselves in a situation where they must undertake initiatives such as the adoption of new technologies in a cost-effective way to support revenue growth and new customer acquisition," the report noted.