The forecast of the situation at the Russian IT market due to the spread of coronavirus infection can be rewritten monthly or even weekly. At first some factors come into the foreground, then other once. Life puts everything in its place little by little.
COVID and China
The first country to suffer significantly from the coronavirus was China as during the first quarter of 2020 there were restrictions on equipment supplies from there. At that time the most actual issues were import substitution, reducing the share of Chinese products in the country's total imports and searching for other partners. By the end of the first quarter COVID had spread to other countries and the quarantine regime was in the United States, Italy, Spain, Germany and other countries. Soon it became clear that among the world's key economies China is one of the best in handling the epidemic.
All other countries had at least three advantages:
- the population density is lower than in China;
- much more information was known about the virus;
- it was possible to use the Chinese experience of fighting the virus.
So, we can say that the pandemic confirmed the status of China as a reliable supplier.
Remote work
The development of the remote work sector was predicted before and now. Moreover, over the past 1.5—2 months, employees of various industries have got used to working from home and have learned to do it effectively.
It is worth adding that some companies have also taken care of effective remote work. They began to compensate the cost of setting up a workplace for their employees. Thus, we can say that today the remote work is firmly established in the life of many companies and there is a noticeable demand for related IT equipment and services.
Features of national quarantine
Another purely Russian factor is its own special view of any problems. Neither in the first days of the spread of coronavirus infection on the territory of Russia, nor at the peak of the incidence, the country didn’t declare an official quarantine or emergency mode.
Instead, it was about self-isolation and days off at the expense of the employer. This has led to the fact that the activities of most companies haven’t stopped since the end of March and this kept supply and demand in the IT market.
Forecasts
Gartner analysts forecast a major reduction in global IT spending by the end of 2020. Before the global spread of COVID-19, Gartner predicted that the global IT market would grow by 3.4% by the end of 2020, but now it predicts the fall by 8%. The sector for which the new forecast is more optimistic is the cloud services market. The most successful segments of the Russian IT market are medicine, education, and the public sector and less fortunate are the transport and construction industries, as well as retail and, of course, tourism.