Int'l company forecasts 12 per cent growth for Vietnam's IT market

inlustration photo

In the freshly-issued "Vietnam Information Technology Report Q1 2011", the BMI, a leading, independent provider of proprietary data, analysis, ratings, rankings and forecasts, projected that the addressable domestic market for IT products and services is to reach $3.3 billion by 2015.

According to the BMI, factors such as growing PC penetration, economic growth, a range of government ICT initiatives and ambitious plans to grow Vietnam's IT industry will help to underpin market progress.

The report wrote: "An ambitious government IT plan for 2010-2020 should shape many segments of the Vietnamese IT market, while Vietnam 's improving information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure will also drive growth.

Vietnam 's gradual integration into global trade networks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has helped to bring down prices and increase opportunities for importers."

It added that in November 2010, the government pledged to invest $8.5 billion over the next ten years in the ICT sector. Meanwhile, the government's campaign to attract more foreign IT companies to invest in Vietnam received a boost with the announcement by American multinational company Hewlett-Packard (HP) that it would set up a wholly-owned firm in Vietnam in early 2011. The government hopes to attract $5 billion of foreign investment into the IT industry by 2015.

According to the BMI, the Vietnamese PC market will be more competitive with multinational brands dominating the market, with HP the top-selling PC brand in 2009, ahead of Acer, and other multinational PC vendors including Dell, Toshiba and Asus having enjoyed strong recent growth in the booming market.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has around 10,000 firms currently licensed to provide IT services, but only one-third are actually operating. The Ministry of Communication and Informations is currently developing a draft decree on policies to help the IT industry grow.