China's software market to double in five years: IDC

Despite rampant piracy, China's packaged software market will more than double in next five years to $5.81 bn, IDC has said.

Despite rampant piracy, the packaged software market in China will more than double in the next five years to $5.81 billion, International Data Corp (IDC) has said.

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Packaged software market in China will grow at an average annual rate of 22.4 per cent from 2004 to 2008, the IDC said in a report.

According to the definition of the US-based research house, packaged software includes software vendors who sell licences, but does not include embedded and tailored software.

The company said the sales of packaged software were $2.11 billion in 2003 with a 15.4 per cent year-on-year growth.

"We believe there are many drivers for growth in every software product, region and industrial sector,", senior analyst of software and service with IDC (China), Grace Han was quoted as saying by China Daily.

She said that although many IT spenders used to like tailored software developed specially for their own purposes, more and more choose to use packaged software now, as their information systems need to communicate with other IT systems.