The African Business Journal: IT on the increase in South Africa IT on the increase in South Africa ================================================================================ John Pinching on 16 January, 2012 04:46:00 TABJ – Jan 16 - The South African IT services market is set to exceed R40 billion ($5 billion) in 2012, a new study by IDC has shown. The market research and advisory company noted that the IT sector has seen impressive growth, increasing around 8 per cent year-on-year in 2010 and contributing to more than a third of the total IT spending in the country. “After a freeze in IT budgets that came about as a result of the global economic crisis, 2010 saw a rebound in IT services spending,” said Suzanne Nolan, research analyst for IT services at IDC South Africa. “The growth in IT services spending was driven by a recovering economy, increased business confidence, expanding bandwidth availability, and various infrastructure investments made in the country in 2010,” she added. Recent research has shown that IT outsourcing made up around 40 per cent of the South African IT services market, and services such as network and desktop outsourcing and infrastructure saw a significant increase in 2010, thanks to the supply of data centre space and increased customer awareness of the managed services model. IDC predicts the total South African IT services market to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 8.7 per cent to exceed R136 billion ($17 billion) in 2015.