Infoconomy index
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The growth rates of European and US IT suppliers are converging fast, even as their combined rise in revenues has slipped back into single digits.
The growth rates of European and US IT suppliers are converging fast, even as their combined rise in revenues has slipped back into single digits.
According to the Infoconomy Index, a measure of the industry's pace based on the latest financial results of the world's 200 largest high-tech companies, overall growth slowed again in March, dropping to 9.5% from 10.2% in the previous month. However, the growth at the subset of European-based companies in the index continued to move in the opposite direction, rising 1% to 7.6%.
A mixed bag of results from some of the industry's giants contributed to those opposite forces. In the US-centric Global Index, downward pressure came from telecoms equipment maker Nortel Networks, whose delayed third-quarter results declined 7%, while software giants Oracle and Adobe helped keep the Index high with respective growth rates of 18% and 12%. Two others showing impressive growth - and both with their roots in Canada - were business intelligence vendor Cognos (27%) and IT services vendor CGI (37%).
However, the biggest contrasts came in Europe. Paris-headquartered IT services company Capgemini reported an upswing in business of 23% for the closing quarter of 2004, a figure helped by acquisitions but underpinned by a solid 14% growth at an organic level. In the same market, the UK's Morse reported 16% growth, and as a measure of the demand for IT skills, Spring Group (the UK-based IT recruitment specialist majority-owned by Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison) turned in a growth rise of 12%. At the same time, there were below par performances at other IT services companies, with LogicaCMG and Computacenter turning in growth of 1% and 3% respectively during the second half of 2004.
Such individual fortunes aside, the signs are clear that the pace on both sides of the Atlantic is converging around the 8% mark. The Infoconomy 200 Index measures the overall growth rate of the IT industry by tracking the financial results of the world's most important publicly listed IT companies.
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