Emergence of COVID-19: Impact on ICT Sector

The world was hit by the novel coronavirus in the year 2020 which was first detected in the city of Wuhan in China. Since then, the virus has continued to adversely affect several countries and industries along its way causing global disturbance which has led some major countries towards recession. Governments of different countries across the globe are now focussing more on bringing the economic balance back by giving out relaxations and forming laws which will help them fight the aftermaths of the pandemic. The pandemic has affected several industries across the globe with ICT being one of them. The industry witnessed a dynamic change during these times with some of the technologies finding new applications and some others witnessing an all time low. Some of the technologies that gained traction were Over-the-top (OTT) services market. The video conferencing technology, artificial intelligence (AI), video streaming platforms, team collaboration software, mobile security technology, video on demand (VoD) market, cloud gaming market and others. On the other hand, the technologies which witnessed a dip in their sales and applications during the pandemic consisted of, Industry 4.0 market, wireless sensors market, robotic process automation market, radar sensor market and others. This can be further elaborated by stating the fact that the applications of AI have witnessed traction in the solutions made to fight the pandemic itself, for instance, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are used to track COVID cases in real time. Furthermore, most of the tech giants including Microsoft and Apple, have also estimated a lower quarterly revenue this year. With the hardware segment witnessing a more significant loss than the software sector as the adoption of technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Video Conferencing technology and others, witnessed a relatively small impact.

The graph shows the total local production in the ICT sector of Germany. The market is estimated to witness a significant dip owing to the rapid loss of demand during the first half of the year after which the market is gradually getting growing with lesser production capacity owing to the persistent threat of the coronavirus. The aftermaths of the pandemic on Germany has triggered a significant level of decline in the ICT sector of Europe as the country is one of the largest market for the sector around the world. According to the research done by the German Association for Information technology the individual sectors under ICT had a significant market share in the year 2019 (in USD Billion); IT-services 44.1, IT-Hardware: 29.9, consumer electronics 10.0, telecommunication infrastructure 8.0, telecommunication devices 12.8 and software 29.8.

The technologies like artificial intelligence, video conferencing software, cybersecurity, data security, Virtual private networks (VPN) and some others have witnessed an exponential rise in their demands during the pandemic. For instance, Huawei has posted a significant rise in the website traffic on their AI, augmented reality and video conferencing segments.

The e-commerce sector is also expected to witness a significant growth owing to the fact that customers are now avoiding crowded areas and have preferring shopping digitally which has also fuelled the growth of digital payment options during the pandemic. Additionally, the market for Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) has also grown at a noticeable rate owing to the rapid increase in the adoption of WhatsApp, messenger, skype, hangouts and other platforms like this owing to the government regulations which encouraged social distancing.

With customers spending a lot more time working and living at home, the market for cloud related services has also witnessed a rapid growth with cloud gaming services being one of them. The customers have opted for gaming services as well.

The market study of the impact of COVID-19 on the information and communication sector is segmented into, artificial intelligence, e-learning, cloud based, big data analytics and others.

Segmentation

By Type

• Artificial Intelligence
• E-Learning Market
• Cloud Based Services
• Big Data Analytics
• Others

By Geography

• Americas
• USA
• Others
• Europe Middle East and Africa
• Germany
• United Kingdom
• France
• Others
• Asia Pacific
• China
• Japan
• Australia
• Others