Gartner has announced that Indian IT hardware end-user spending, estimated at $2.3 billion in 2002, will grow to $6.78 billion by 2006, at a CAGR of 9.5 percent. This includes PCs, notebooks, printers, servers and workstations only.

Mathew Boon, Principal Analyst-Hardware Platforms, Gartner, said, "Events of the past year caused a wave of cautious spending on hardware by companies across all verticals. In many cases, hardware purchases have either been postponed or cancelled as corporates sensed tough business conditions in the near future. Though it spells tough times for now, the market is slated for recovery towards the first half of 2003."

In a recent survey of 1900 ASEAN based organizations, which includes India; indications for the next 12 months reveal that 20 percent are expected to embark on server consolidation programs.

In the hardware infrastructure spaces of servers and storage, a number of trends are emerging across India and Asia Pacific which will help drive growth in the next 12-36 months.

Within the ASEAN marketplace, many organizations face high under-utilization of storage resources often to the tune of 50 percent, the recent survey mentioned over 20 percent of organizations are expected to install SAN solutions in the next 12 months.

Corporates recognize some of the ROI benefits that consolidation can bring and have been considering consolidation. Server consolidation is becoming one of the major drivers for server deployments today.

The server market generated business to the tune of $250 million in 2001 and is expected to show a CAGR of 3.5 percent from 2001 through 2006. Server and storage consolidation is still an early concept for the Indian market though some businesses have already started giving serious thoughts on the issue. Server deployments saw a decline in the growth rate to a certain extent mainly due to the economic slowdown.

The Indian PC market contributed revenue worth $1.6 Billion in 2001 with a CAGR of 11.5 percent from 2001 through 2006. PC end-user spending is estimated to contribute 85 percent of the total end user spending in 2002 and will account for 90 percent of total market in year 2006.