IBM named IT services kingpin

IBM has maintained its role as the IT services kingpin, coming out on top of a league table from analyst Gartner.

IBM holds 7.2 per cent of the worldwide IT services market, followed by EDS, Fujitsu, Accenture, HP and CSC, according to Gartner.

But its growth rate is among the slowest of the top six. Accenture and EDS are the fastest growing companies in the upper ranking, growing by 7.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent from 2005 to 2006, respectively.

Despite talk of the threat of Indian-based IT services companies, these businesses account for just three per cent of worldwide revenues, according to Gartner, compared to 57 per cent for US-based vendors.

Katharine Hale, vice president at Gartner, said that without significant acquisitions, it would take India-based vendors many years to reach even half the revenue of US-based vendors.

Overall worldwide IT services revenue totalled $672.3bn in 2006, up 6.4 per cent from the previous year. BPO services showed the strongest growth at 8.6 per cent, while Gartner described development and integration services as the "backbone" of the market, given they account for 30 per cent of total revenues.

Though the usual suspects top the list, together they account for just one-fifth of the total market, indicating this is a diverse area with plenty of players.

IBM Global Services was recently voted the world's best outsourcing company by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.