Telecom spending in India to grow 2.1% in 2019 after 1.5% drop

Research firm Gartner’s recent report on the IT spending forecast for India is indicating a substantial revival in the Indian telecom sector in 2019.
India ICT spending forecastThe report said India’s communication services spending will grow at 2.1 percent in 2019 as against an expected 1.5 percent drop in 2018. The revival will be supported by growth in the mobile ARPU of Indian telecom operators such as BSNL, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio.

Indian communication service spending will reach $30.585 billion in 2019 from $29.970 billion in 2018 from $30.419 billion in 2017. The growth in Indian communication service spending in 2017 was 7 percent despite tough competition among mobile operators – driven by the entry of Reliance Jio in September 2016.

Indian devices market – mobile phones, PCs, laptops and tablets – will grow at 7.4 percent to $33.014 billion in 2019 against 7 percent increase anticipated in 2018 and 27.4 percent achieved in 2017. The single-digit growth will be driven by shift to smartphones from 2G phones.

“The increasing demand for quality mobile phones has led to the rising average selling price of mobile phones in India, positioning India as having the third-fastest device market growth — behind Indonesia and South Africa,” Ganesh Ramamoorthy, managing vice president at Gartner, said.

India’s total ICT spending will reach $89.2 billion in 2019, an increase of 6.7 percent from estimated spending of $83.6 billion in 2018 — driven by digital business transformation initiatives from both private and public organizations.