Asia/Pacific Will Experience Sharpest Growth in Professional Developers and Will Exceed U.S. in 2006, IDC Finds.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- According to an IDC study, China and India will experience the highest growth in professional software developers between 2003 and 2008 with compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of 25.6% and 24.5% respectively. The Asia/Pacific region will surpass North America in the overall number of professional developers beginning in 2006 while the Middle East and Africa will experience the highest regional growth with an 18.3% CAGR between 2003 and 2008. North America continues to lead all other regions of the world in the highest penetration of professional developers by a wide margin.

"Given that China and India alone represent more than one-third of the world's population and with many vendors expecting Asia/Pacific to pick up in terms of IT spending, the rise to dominance by Asia/Pacific is expected," said Stephen Hendrick, group vice president of IDC's Application Development and Deployment Research. "For the large economy of North America, which has historically been the home of most developers, program development automation techniques, offshoring, and increasing productivity are all likely to put downward pressure on the rate at which the number of professional developers in North America increases."

IDC forecasts that the total number of professional developers worldwide will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% between 2003 and 2008, reaching 14.9 million in 2008. This forecast is based on worldwide population statistics, changes in literacy, and growth in IT spending.

Application development and deployment software vendors can address the large majority of the world's professional developers by targeting the needs of the 10 countries with the largest developer populations: U.S., Russia, India, Japan, Canada, Germany, China, the U.K., France, and Italy (with Spain close to 10th place). IDC warns against such total geographic specificity, however, and recommends that application development and deployment software vendors provide geographic-specific requirements for the smaller, yet growing and lucrative markets.

Hendrick adds, "Many developing countries will need additional training opportunities as well as software and documentation in their native languages. Those vendors that are willing to address these smaller markets can potentially garner a larger share of those markets than would be possible in the largest markets, which will be targeted by the majority of vendors."

The IDC study, The 2004 IDC Professional Developer Model (IDC #32546), discusses the IDC Professional Developer Model, which presents a methodology for estimating the number of professional developers worldwide, regionally, and in over 190 countries. The study presents the results of the model for 2001-2008, and provides vendors with future outlooks and essential guidance.

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