GIS/Geospatial industry worldwide growth is forecast to slow to 1%, down from 11% in 2008 and a whopping 17.4% in 2007 according to a just released study by Daratech, a market research firm. However, industry CEOs interviewed by the firm were unanimous in their belief that growth consistent with the robust 11% compound annual growth rate of the past six years would return in 2010.
North America has not been as adversely affected by the downturn as the rest of the world due to the on-going needs of homeland security and continuing investment in GIS, by the public sector. Growth in North America is forecast by Daratech to top 2.1%, more than twice the growth in Asia Pacific and five times the growth in Europe where investment in GIS/Geospatial technology has been hurt more severely by the current downturn as many European governments have cut back their geospatial technology purchases in anticipation of lower tax collections.
Perhaps the most dramatic slowdown in 2009 was in the private sector, which is forecast to shrink to $1.4 billion, down 0.7% from 2008. This downturn echoes the general pull back of the private sector from major additional investments in new IT technologies. At the same time public sector sales are expected to grow 4.1% to almost $957 million in 2009 reflecting this sectors continuing deployment of GIS technologies to all the services it offers.
In the traditional GIS segment ESRI continues to have a dominant 30% market share, up from 29% in 2008 according to Daratech. Intergraph, the second largest player in the traditional segment is forecast to have a 16% market share in 2009, up from 15% in 2008. Third ranked is GE Energy, which is the market leader in the utilities market where it is forecast to have a 24% market share.
In the larger GIS/Geospatial market that includes data, geo-enabled engineering, GPS, photogrammetry and remote sensing MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates has a leading 21.8% share of the market. ESRI, is second with a 15.7% share and Bentley Systems, the leading supplier of GIS/Geospatial AEC market software and services is third.
For more information please visit www.daratech.com