In 2009, the IT market in Macedonia, contrary to expectations, rose 1.8% year on year in U.S. dollar terms to $164.48 million. Measured in local currency, the market was up 7.2%, according to annual study from IT market research company IDC Adriatics. Macedonia was among the rare countries that did not experience the sharp contraction of IT spending last year.

“The growth of IT market in Macedonia could be attributed to a surge of government IT spending, particularly a 72,000 notebook procurements of the education sector and several IT services intensive projects. At the same time, IT spending in the rest of the real sector and households were hit hard by the economic downturn”, says Managing Director Boris Zitnik, IDC Adriatics.

Technology trends in Macedonia were divergent in 2009. While desktops PC’s, systems and servers, as well as HCP shipments decreased year on year, notebook PC’s, spending on IT services and on licensing and maintenance (L&M) drove the Macedonian IT market. IT services related revenue increased 15.8% year on year, packaged software rose 8.2%, while hardware sales contracted 4.3%. Accordingly, the share of IT services in the total country’s IT market increased 3.1 percentage points to 25.6%; package software’s share rose 0.7, while hardware’s share declined 3.9 percentage points from the year before.

“Macedonia has a government that strongly supports information society development, as was demonstrated by the expansion of the country’s IT market last year, contrary to the worldwide economic downturn, moving Macedonia to 4th place among Adriatic countries ¬– a historically high ranking. This should serve as validation for the IT industry being the enabler of economic recovery and growth”, claims Aleksandar Ugrinoski, IDC’s local representative.

Posting $79 in IT spending per capita in 2009, Macedonia stood at 9.5% of the EU27 average ($832). The country lagged Adriatic countries like Slovenia ($450), and Croatia ($248), was close to Serbia ($96), and ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina ($35).

IDC expects IT spending in Macedonia to decline by 12.1% in 2010, from the high base of 2009. Over the five-year forecast period, the country’s IT market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2% period to reach $212 million in 2014.

IDC’s Macedonia IT Market 2010–2014 Forecast and 2009 Vendor Shares (IDC # ESQ05S) presents the IT market in Macedonia and forecasts total IT expenditure by technology through 2014. The study contains market size, vendor market shares, and growth projections for hardware, packaged software, and IT services provision. It analyzes market trends and provides valuable insights into the main drivers of the individual market segments.