The investment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in
information technology (IT) will reach over 230 billion yuan
(US$28.36 billion) in 2009, according to a report released recently
by a Chinese global consulting company.
SMEs' demand for IT has become the principal source of growth of
China's information technology market, says the report by the China
Center of Information Industry Development (CCID).
They have for three years running exceeded large enterprises in
terms of investment in "informationization," the report says.
The report says that SMEs have made big progress in the
application of information technologies, especially software, with
investment in the software sector reaching 17.16 billion yuan in
2004, accounting for 15.8 percent of the total investment. The
growth is 2.2 percentage points higher than in 2003.
SMEs are shifting their focus from financial software to
solution software.
Chinese enterprises have made substantial progress in terms of
informationization in 2004 and the next three years will be a key
period for the informationization market of SMEs to grow
mature.
CCID Consulting predicts that Chinese SMEs' informationization
market will further grow at an average annual rate of 18 percent in
the next three years, on the basis of a 100 billion yuan market
scale in 2004.
(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2005)