Polish IT sector is one of the most vital and robust industries within the national economy, with good fundamentals and further growth prospects. According to the latest figures by research company DiS, the market value in 2013 has increased by 4% and reached PLN 21.2 bln, which represents nearly 1.5% of Poland’s GDP. Polish IT industry is a leader in its region, and the demand for qualified IT engineers is growing.
Nevertheless, 2013 was not an easy year for the IT sector. DiS company analysts say that growth in the IT market fell sharply, and the industry had to increase exports to make up for lower turnover in the domestic market, which grew by only 4%. yoy.
The biggest slump came in the last quarter of 2013. In an interview with the daily Rzeczpospolita, Andrew Dyżewski, the Head of DiS, said that the demand in Q4 2013 was down by 12%.
However, the segment of hardware sales recorded a very high 30-percent increase throughout the past year.
“The fastest growing segment in the IT market in 2013 was the hardware segment – the growth rate reached 31%. The purchases were made mostly by large enterprises and the public sector (sales increases were double-digit) “- Rzeczpospolita daily reported quoting DiS analysts.
DiS Experts stressed that the relatively low rate of growth of the domestic IT market has prompted many companies to seek new markets. As a result, foreign sales grew by more than 21%, and the value of exports of Polish IT companies reached nearly PLN 9 bln.
Poland IT will overtake Austria in the region?
The analysis carried out on behalf of Kapsch BusinessCom called Polish IT sector the most dynamic in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.
“I strongly believe that – having taken into account the current trends – Poland and Turkey will be the largest markets in the region in the coming years, ” – said Jochen Borenich, CEO of Kapsch BusinessCom in conversation with industry portal itwiz.pl at the end of February this year.
“Among the seven analyzed countries the following can boast the largest IT markets: Austria, Turkey and Poland. In these three countries, the annual IT expenditure exceeds EUR 5 bln. Pierre Audoin Consultants Experts estimate that the value of the Polish market reaches around EUR 5.6 bln. The value of the Turkish market is estimated at about EUR 5.85 bln. Yet the largest market so far, with annual expenditure of EUR 6.14 bln, can be found in Austria,” the report reads.
Source: Kapsch BusinessCom, itwiz.pl
Yet, Kapsch representatives expect that due to the high, 4% growth– similar to the Turkish market – Poland will exceed the Austria in a few years, itwiz.pl reports.
In turn, Roman Durka, president of Kapsch Polish branch, claims that the fact that Poland performs very well compared to other countries confirms the enormous potential of the local industry, which following the footsteps of the global trends, will become the regional leader.
“Forecasts have for some time pointed to the growing popularity of mobile solutions and cloud computing. As it turns out, our market fully confirms it “- he said. Moreover, he feels that the growing popularity of cloud computing could be attributed to the reduced IT costs, scalability, and access to automatic updates provided by cloud computing services like IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), etc.
The demand for IT engineers
The success of Information Technology industry in Poland is indeed based on its vast human resources – high quality IT engineers. 15,000 IT graduates enter the market annually while 99,500 high school students attend IT-specialized courses, PAIiIZ also claims. In addition, the job market within the sector is highly competitive guaranteeing good quality of employees, as the average IT salary is ca. 57% higher than the national average.
Despite the relatively large human resources, from which the IT companies in Poland draw its staff, the demand for qualified IT engineers continues to grow.
in January 2014 alone as much as 47% of companies were looking for candidates in the IT sector, whereas the number of offers for employees in this sector increased by 39% compared to December last year and by 79% compared to January 2013, the outsourcingportal.pl website reported in its study conducted in February this year.
“The dynamic growth in the number of vacancies for IT professionals, particularly for developers, is the result of continuous development of Polish enterprises (…). In addition, the demand for workers in the IT sector is a result of the dynamic development of outsourcing and shared services centers,” the commentary to the study reads.
Source – Polish Press Agency, Economic Service
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