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Before the US economy started to slow down as a result of the subprime crisis, the Latin American IT market had healthy growth projections for 2008 and 2009. But as the global economy hit a bend and investors applied the brakes, IDC took more and harder looks at its predictions. In early 2008, the consultancy predicted 13.9% growth for the Latin American IT market in 2009, but by the end of last year the forecast was revised downwards to 7.8%. This week, the consultancy's new estimate was just 4%.
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Hardware will be the slowest segment this year, and within that, PC sales - which drive hardware growth - will increase just 0.4%, led by notebook sales with an 11% increase due to falling prices that encourage companies and residential users to choose laptops over desktops.
2008 was a record year for Latin American sales, as PC shipments increased 16% to 26.5mn units. These numbers will fall 5% this year to 25mn units, dragged down by a 14% drop in desktop sales. Sales of netbooks will increase 90% to 1.6mn units.
An area posed for growth is the business intelligence market, according to results from a study conducted in Brazil and Mexico by US consultancy Access Markets International (AMI) Partners. AMI found that in Latin America’s two largest countries, 20% of mid-sized companies that are not using a business intelligence solution are expected to acquire the software this year.
The potential opportunity for BI software vendors is huge in Latin America, with 76% of mid-sized firms in Brazil and 80% in Mexico not using any form of BI software. Considering, however, that roughly 60% of non-BI users have no need for ERP/CRM software, AMI recommends BI vendors to focus more attention on advertising BI products and service as a separate and standalone tool or as a service that can be hosted.