Worldwide IT services revenue grew by 6 per cent: Gartner

BANGALORE: Worldwide IT services revenue totalled $672.3 billion in 2006, a 6.4 per cent rise from $631.8 billion generated last year, said Gartner Inc, the world's leading IT research and advisory company.

While India-based vendors' IT services revenue grew 33.3 per cent in 2006, these companies earned only three per cent of the revenue tracked, while US-based vendors earned 57 per cent of the total.

"Without significant acquisitions, it would take India-based vendors many years to reach even half the revenue of US-based vendors," said Gartner's Worldwide IT service group Vice-President (Research) Kathryn Hale.

"Core business process outsourcing (BPO) services had a strong showing in 2006," she said.

"These process management services increased 8.6 per cent worldwide and serveral market leaders grew faster than the overall market. Development and integration services represent the backbone of IT services accounting for 30 per cent of the market in 2006", she added.

In all IT services IBM continued to be the worldwide market leader, but its growth rate was below the industry average.

EDS and Accenture were the only vendors in the top six that experienced revenue growth rates above the overall market average. Market share for 13 of the top 20 vendors dropped in 2006.