Western European Retail/Wholesale to Reach an Overall Market Value of Approximately $40 Billion in 2009,

IDC: foresees a CAGR over the forecast period 2005–2009 of 4.3% in the Western European retail/wholesale industry, to reach an overall market value of approximately $40 billion in 2009.

the retail segment to register better IT spending growth compared to the wholesale segment, as retail is expected to have a CAGR of 5.1% (a 0.4% increase from May) and wholesale a CAGR of 3.2% (a 0.1% decrease from May) over the forecast period.

The 'other general distribution' sub-segment is expected to attract the best opportunities, both in terms of the size and growth rates of IT investments. Short-term focus is on improving operational efficiencies, enhancing consumer experience, and enabling real-time business performance management. As a whole this represents a very complex task, as it involves enhancements in demand-side, supply-side, and corporate management . Therefore retailers are focused on investing in industry-specific applications and networking technologies as well as pursuing IT modernization and integration initiatives in order to provide a seamless flow of information across disparate systems, employees, and supply chain partners.

Opportunity areas for IT vendors targeting the European retail/wholesale market are growing compared to the last forecast issued in May 2005. IT products and services will experience different levels of demand:

• Software continues to be the fastest growing segment overall and is expected to account for a larger share of IT spending compared to the May forecast. IDC anticipates a CAGR for software spending in retail of 6.6% and in wholesale of 4.5% for the period 2005–2009.

• IDC foresees IT services spending achieving a CAGR of 5.7% in retail and 3.8% in wholesale over the forecast period, with greater opportunities arising for operational services.

• Hardware is still expected to show the slowest growth over the forecast period, with a CAGR of 2.7% in retail and 0.8% in wholesale.

This study, Western European Retail and Wholesale 2004–2009 IT Spending Forecast Update Publ 2006018