IT & Telecommunications

Along with the crisis’s developments and complexities, the Ukrainian economy has obtained a stimulus for the transition to a post-industrial society. In turn, such an approach requires developing high technologies and supporting innovations, in particular, the application of nanotechnology in a range of industries, including IT and alternative power engineering. 

One aspect of the Ukrainian IT-market is that almost all equipment and software is imported to Ukraine. In the 1st half of 2009, the total share of Acer, Asus and Samsung reached 68% of the market. 

Each year, software sales volumes on the territory of Ukraine increase significantly. Having analyzed the consequences of the economic crisis, after the biggest losses were incurred by the PC sector, which occupied the largest share in the industry structure, the integral development trend will be a structural change and principal redistribution of all market segments.

Figure 1. IT market structure for the 1st half of 2009 

The important factor, which influenced the supplies of equipment to Ukraine in the 1st half of 2009, is large inventories at distributors’ warehouses. By the end of 2008, suppliers delivered to the country, but had not sold, about 225 th notebooks, more than 160 th units of printing equipment, almost 2000 servers, as well as other products, with a total cost of more than USD 250.0 mln.

Figure 2. Volume of PC supplies to the Ukrainian market, th units

The share of the top-10 domestic manufacturers in the 1st half of 2009 decrease by almost half compared with 2008. Such a dynamic is connected with the activation of small assembly companies, which often offer more favourable prices and have the opportunity to respond to changing demands more promptly, with the decline of system integration market volumes and large quantity of assembled PCs at warehouses at the beginning of 2009.

As for the market of telecommunications, the main aspect of this branch is capital intensity. Therefore, today, the major players of this market are trying to launch projects that they had planned to start 2-3 years later, and to return credit and investment resources to support the companies’ activities. The principal directions of investment into telecommunications are in the upgrade of equipment and development of telecommunication networks. The key share in total market turnover is held by companies-mobile operators and Internet providers. Despite the difficult economic situation, qualified personnel are needed. 

At present, the main market trend is a decrease of subscriber numbers. However, this does not lead to great losses in the industry, as this market is growing at a fast pace and has huge investment potential. Therefore, an inflow of capital will be observed in this industry in the nearest time.