IT sector in Russia grows during pandemic

According to IDC, in 2020 the growth of the IT market in rubles increased by 14% (up to 1.833 trillion rubles) compared to 2019. The Russian government has maintained high spending on digital technologies throughout the year, providing a solid foundation for the corporate IT market as a whole. The influence of this factor was especially significant in the second quarter. Equally important was the decision to allow most industries to operate more or less without restrictions for most of the year, which had a beneficial effect on the Russian economy and, therefore, on the Russian IT market. This is the difference from other European countries.

In dollar terms, Robert Farish (IDC) estimated the growth of the Russian IT market at 2%, but in absolute terms, IDC did not provide a figure. However, earlier, the same analytical company gave an estimate of the IT market in dollars for 2019 - about $ 24.18 billion. The assessment of the global IT market was presented by Gartner. Global IT spending declined 3.2% in 2020, they said, largely as CIOs prioritized business-critical technologies and services in the early stages of the pandemic.

The largest Russian IT companies showed solid results in 2020. The markets for PCs and corporate infrastructure (servers, storage systems, and corporate networking products) showed impressive growth - 31% and 27% in ruble terms, respectively. The markets for software and IT services also grew steadily - both, according to preliminary data, grew by 16% in ruble terms.

IDC talks about the "triumphant return of the PC to the market". Before that, PC sales hadn't shone. The year of the pandemic has shown how important these devices are to productivity. According to preliminary data estimates for the first quarter of 2021, the PC segment will grow by more than 50%. In the corporate infrastructure segment, growth has traditionally been driven by the financial and telecommunications sectors, as well as a significant share of the public sector and state-owned companies. At the same time, in the field of infrastructure, the importance and share of the segment of cloud service providers is growing. In 2020, many organizations have begun to devote even more to information security than before. In 2020, the architecture and information security perimeter has changed for a large number of companies due to the transition to remote work. The pandemic has boosted demand for cloud-based security solutions, VPN services, user device security, and security consulting. Analysts expect the smallest dynamics in the IT infrastructure segment, and servers and storage systems may even decline. And in dollar terms, the segment of IT infrastructure will decline by 3%, according to IDC Russia. "Over the past three years, outstripping investments have been made in infrastructure," explains IDC Russia. Now you need to deploy business functionality to it. Business applications will be prioritized over IT programs over infrastructure.

In general, according to current IDC observations, many companies perform even better in the first quarter of 2021. "We can say with some confidence that the first quarter of 2021 was very successful in most of the IT market segments," said Robert Farish. "The outlook for the second quarter looks good as well, both in terms of the mass market and the project market."

In Europe, in 2020, customers mainly reduced their IT costs, while Russian companies continued to invest in this area, many even built their anti-crisis strategy on this. The pandemic has forced companies to focus on digital projects with short-term ROIs. Therefore, in 2021, according to IDC forecasts, the number of investments in long-term projects, for example, in the Internet of Things and robotics, will decrease. In terms of the overall economic environment, IDC sees no obvious reason to expect a noticeable deterioration in the IT investment environment in the second half of the year. According to IDC forecasts, in 2021 the IT market will continue to grow at the same rate.