High-tech spending still low
Greece is languishing at the wrong end of the European Union chart in per capita expenditure on technology products and services with just -783 in 2006, according to the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO). The data from the latest EITO report show that Greeks spent much more money last year on technology commodities (e.g. information technology products or cellphone bills), but are still a long way from the EU average (-1,344) and even further from Northern European countries such as Sweden (-2,473) and Denmark (-2,464). The per capita gross domestic product of Greece may be much lower than that of Denmark or Sweden, but Greece was overtaken last year even by Slovenia in spending on technology. The annual EITO report, in which European corporations participate with the cooperation of strong technology enterprises, is a point of reference for the IT and telecommunications sectors. EITO analysts forecast that this year the global IT and telecoms market will expand by about 4 percent and reach -2.1 trillion, with Europe accounting for a third of it. In the EU the growth rate of the IT and telecoms market will be somewhat lower, at 2.9 percent in 2007, coming to -668 billion. Recent estimates suggested that the Greek market slowed down last year but in 2007 it will grow at a satisfactory rate, mainly because this is a year when most state IT projects will be realized. The greatest growth rate in the EU is to be found in the software market (6.5 percent), followed by IT services (5.5 percent). Crucially, the hardware sector, where most Greek companies are involved, will only grow by 1.4 percent this year, according to EITO. The telecom services market will also record a modest rise, of 2.2 percent, mainly due to the intense competition that leads to charging rates going down.
