The Japan small and medium-size business (SMB) IT market will reach 3,381 billion yen in 2011, representing a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 8.6%, primarily due to result of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in March 2011, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
The affected SMBs in Japan have been slow to resume business because of damages to buildings and facilities due to the Great Tohoku Earthquake and the lack of resources with which to renovate them.
These delays in the restoration of production facilities in the Tohoku region have severed supply chains, created power shortages in areas serviced by Tokyo Electric Power and Tohoku-Electric Power.
The overall effect has been detrimental to SMBs and, as a trend, caused them to cut back on their IT spending, the IDC forecasts said.
However, IDC expects resumption of positive growth in this market in 2012 when supply chains are rebuilt and reconstruction demand keeps SMBs afloat.
IDC forecasts that other industry sectors will also see a negative growth in 2011 due to the impact by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, further leading to a Tsunami.
Manufacturing (YoY growth rate of -11.4%) and financial services (-10.7%) are forecast to be particularly hard hit with double-digit negative growth, while milder impact will be seen for information services (-5.9%).
However, IDC forecasts positive growth for all sectors except financial services in 2012.
IDC expects that demand for datacenters and cloud computing among SMBs seeking to address issues such as business continuity, disaster recovery, and power conservation will increase, in spite of the substantial decline in the 2011 Japan SMB IT market.
