Gartner survey reveals IT spending in Asia Pacific lags North America by half.

Australia spends highest proportion of revenue on IT in Asia Pacific, while booming economies of China and India increase spending to support growth Organisations in Asia Pacific spend only about hall as much on IT operations as their North American counterparts, according to the results of Gartner's latest Asia Pacific IT Spending and Staffing survey, spending only 1.4 percent of revenue on IT operations compared to 2.6 US.

As a relatively mature market, Australia leads the Asia Pacific region with an average IT operating budget of 2.1 percent of revenue, compared to a low of 1.2 percent in Malaysia and South Korea. However, spending on IT capital varied from a high of 1.7 percent in India to a low of 0.8 percent in Australia, compared with 1.2 percent in North America. High IT capital spending in the booming economies in Asia is consistent with other evidence, which indicates increased investment in IT to cope with growth.

In general, organisations in Asia Pacific see themselves as far more conservative in IT adoption (35 to 50 percent range) compared with in North America (14 percent). Australian IT departments rated themselves as more aggressive and less conservative than Singapore, but other countries were much more aggressive and less conservative than Australia.

"Interestingly, it is the booming economies of China and India that see themselves as the most aggressive, consistent with their current high levels of IT capital spending," said Gartner.

The survey also found significant differences between industries in the level of IT investment, apportionment of IT budget, level of IT maturity and the relative importance of drivers for IT spending. However, operational efficiency (saving money) is still cited as a driver of IT spending more often than any other factor in Asia Pacific.

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