3. New Zealand IT Market
The information in this section is taken from a survey of IT businesses conducted by Statistics New Zealand. For more information about the survey see the previous section, Software and Services Exports.
New Zealand Hardware, Software and Services Market
| | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 |
|---|
| Training | 26 | 32 | 45 | 46 |
|---|
| Computer Services | 851 | 997 | 1150 | 1164 |
|---|
| Software | 273 | 313 | 322 | 301 |
|---|
| Communications Hardware and Cables | 256 | 325 | 411 | 406 |
|---|
| Peripherals | 206 | 299 | 289 | 290 |
|---|
| Multi User Hardware | 327 | 374 | 476 | 449 |
|---|
| Single User Hardware | 324 | 468 | 459 | 390 |
|---|
The figures used in the graph above represent goods and services sold to end users, and so do not double-count items which are sold by wholesalers and sold on by retailers.
The Single User Hardware category refers to complete computers intended for use by only one person at any one time and so mainly comprises desktop and laptop PCs and Macintoshes. Multi User Hardware refers to computers intended for use by many people at the same time and includes file servers, midrange systems and mainframes. Parts of computer systems (other than the CPU) when sold separately appear under Peripherals. The split between Software and Computer Services is unreliable because of the difficulty of accounting for software maintenance revenue.
Taking into account the revisions to the 1996 figures, sales in the New Zealand IT market fell by 3.4% in the 1997 financial year, following growth of 12.3% in 1996 and 24% in 1995. This was due to large falls in sales of Single User Hardware, (a 15% decrease), Multi User Hardware, (a 5.7% decrease), and sales of Software, (a 6.5% decrease). These falls may reflect ongoing and significant decreases in the prices of IT hardware and software, rather than actual decreases in sales volumes. There was also a small fall of 1.4% in sales of Communications Hardware and Cables from $411 million to $406 million.
The categories that showed some growth in 1997 were the Peripheral Equipment category, which rose 0.2%, Computer Services, a 1.2% increase and Training and Education in IT, which increased by 2.9%. These increases were not enough to offset the decreases in the other four categories.
Combining the IT hardware categories shows that sales of IT hardware fell 6.2% to $1.5 billion from $1.6 billion in 1996, which was an 11.6% increase on the 1995 figure. Single user hardware sales have decreased in both the 1996 and 1997 years from a peak of $468 million in 1995. However, sales of multi user systems and communications hardware and cables appear to have peaked in the 1996 year.
Sales of software and services, when combined fell by just 0.4% to $1.46 billion from $1.47 billion in 1996. This follows an increase of 12.3% in 1995. The growth rate of software sales has decreased since the survey was first undertaken in 1994 and is now falling. Computer services sales have continued to increase, although at a much lower rate in 1997. A similar pattern is noticeable in the field of IT training and education, which has continued to grow, although at a much decreased rate of 2.9% in 1997.
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