European IT sector growth slumps lower
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The European recession is deepening, but the picture in Europe is still not as bleak as elsewhere.
The European IT recession is
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As bad as these numbers appear, the picture in Europe is still not as bleak as elsewhere. For the past six months, the Infoconomy Global Index, dominated by US high-tech companies, has been languishing at between -12% and -14%.
Strikingly bad results from companies spread across almost all technology sectors had a large negative impact on the European Index. In the UK, entertainment software vendor Eidos had a 16% slump in revenues in its latest quarter; supply chain software company Kewill posted 22% lower sales for its financial year to the end of March; applications and services company Northgate reported a 14% drop in revenues over the same period; and availability services company Synstar had a 7% fall in revenues in its fiscal first half.
However, the largest single decline was reserved for IT services company WM-data. Revenues at the Sweden-based company almost halved. The news was not all bad. There were some positive numbers that kept the index from falling even further. Denmark's Navision, in its final quarterly results prior to being acquired by Microsoft, showed 16% growth. And Tietoenator, the Finnish IT services company, boasted a growth rate of 10%.
But these strong performances in tough economic times are very much the exception. And there are firm indications that the EuroIndex will fall even further in the coming months.
