The report, which includes market sizing and forecast estimates for the utilities industry in Western Europe for 2011-2016, predicts that IT spending by technologies and sub technologies over a five-year span for software spending will see the most significant boom, growing at a 2011-2016 CAGR of 7.2%, reaching $3.1 billion by 2016. IT services also show a positive outlook, growing just below average (4.9%), while the hardware sector will grow below average (at 3.1%) between 2011 and 2016.
"The need to reduce costs and achieve operational excellence together with the need to comply with energy policies and regulation will continue to drive utilities' ICT investments," said Gaia Gallotti, senior research analyst, IDC Energy Insights. "This translates into an estimated total Western European utilities' 2011-2016 CAGR of 5.1%."
The report shows that:
- Electricity companies take the most significant share of IT spending in 2012, at 66.9% ($7 billion).
- The gas and water segments are considerably smaller, but still important, at 16% and 13% respectively.
- IT services make up 62.1% of total IT spending for utilities, making it the largest share with over $6.5 billion in 2011. Behind IT services are packaged software and hardware, which make up 22% and 15.9% of IT spending respectively.
- Among the IT spending on IT services sub technologies by utilities, implementation and operations make up the largest share with 34.4% and 25.2% respectively.
The report, Western Europe, Utilities Industry, IT Spending, 2011-2016 Forecast (IDC Energy Insights #EIOS56U, August 2012), includes market sizing and forecast estimates for the utilities industry in Western Europe for 2011-2016. It contains a downloadable pivot table, a detailed overview of the current status of the utilities sector in the top 5 Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.), and an aggregate of the remaining Western European countries. The report also provides an overview of utilities' business environment and IT spending behavior, priorities, and future outlook.