Thriving telecoms sector leaves economy behind

By CHRIS BARTON

The information technology and telecommunications (IT&T) market grew 5.9 per cent in New Zealand last year, totalling $8.68 billion.

Counting the wholesale market, total sales were $11.13 billion, up 6.9 per cent.

Ministry of Economic Development adviser Frank March said the overall growth was a significant improvement on the 2.6 per cent in 1999 and showed the sector was growing much faster than the economy.

He pointed out that the sector as a whole represented 10.5 per cent of GDP to March 2000. In 1997, the sector represented 7 per cent of GDP.

The Statistics NZ figures also include for the first time contributions from the telecommunications industry, which is worth $3.84 billion in sales of services and $232 million in exports.

Communication hardware and cables, which includes switching and transmission equipment, and fixed-line or cellphone customer equipment was the standout growth market, increasing nearly 25 per cent last year to $440 million.

Similarly, communication hardware export sales grew 26 per cent to $309.5 million.

IT&T exports, boosted by telecommunications, grew 10.7 per cent overall to $923.2 million. Software exports rose 13.9 per cent to $112.8 million.

Coming off relatively smaller numbers, the training and education market also surged - up 47 per cent to $95 million in sales and 55 per cent to 3.1 million in exports.

Computer services was the second-largest contributor to the total market after communications services, totalling $1.86 billion, up 16.5 per cent on 1999.

On the downside, the single-user PC market slumped 11.9 per cent to $387 million, perhaps reflecting a worldwide slowdown in the PC market. There were corresponding falls in the peripheral computer equipment market (minus 13.4 per cent) and in software sales to end-users (down 13.7 per cent).