Information, communication technologies spending in Turkey to reach over $17B this year

Information and communication technology spending by institutions in Turkey is expected to reach $17.1 billion in size this year, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report.

According to the 2019 IDC Turkey Predictions report prepared by IDC analysts, digitalization in all institutions continues with significant investments despite certain fluctuations in the economy.

The report highlights that telecommunication, finance, public, production and retail sectors come to the fore with the highest IT spending, while especially telecom operators are making significant investments toward becoming a digital service provider.

Hosted by Microsoft Turkey, the 2019 IDC Turkey Predictions event was held on Feb. 7. Organized for the fourth time, the event was attended by chief information officers (CIOs) of prominent corporations, IDC Turkey analysts, and leading ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) suppliers.

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries.

"Global spending and employment measures, increased competition and profitability measures; rapid depreciation and volatility of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar led the institutions operating in the public and private sectors to reconsider their IT investments," IDC Turkey Country Director Nevin Çizmecioğulları said in her address at the event.

Despite all the negativity, Çizmecioğulları said, they have observed that businesses that want to obtain a permanent place in the Turkish market and that have a long-term perspective continue to invest in technology.

"The importance of digital transformation for companies is becoming clearer in such environments. In the coming period, with the contribution of the growing startup ecosystem, we anticipate that many new partnerships, new investments and projects will be realized in new technologies such as blockchain, cybersecurity, 5G and robotic process automation," she added.

Besides Turkish telecom services, the rest of the IT market will reach $8.3 billion this year. In the hardware-weighted market, IT services and sub-sectors of the software industry are the fastest growing areas with an estimated annual growth rate of 3.8 percent predicted by the IDC.

The financial sector is, on the one hand, shaping its investments within the framework of ensuring regulatory compliance, according to the report, while on the other hand, it focuses on improving customer experience and operational efficiency with new technologies such as blockchain and Open API.

By becoming the most critical priority of CIOs in Turkey, innovation and the value provided to the company will have an effect on the future IT investments. Moreover, companies are said will interact much more with technology initiatives to become more innovative and agile.

The robotic process automation will turn into one of the most important solutions for reducing the labor cost of companies and increasing their operational efficiency.

Increasing investments in the big data and analytics area will reveal the importance of data architecture. Also, cloud services will become one of the most important components of digital transformation projects with the flexibility they provide.