IDC has put a several numbers behind the impact of the coronavirus on China's ICT market, but the effect will largely be limited to the first quarter. IDC said the coronavirus will have a greater impact on China's ICT market, compared to the Chinese economy overall. The coronavirus will also have a bigger effect in China than the SARS virus outbreak in Asia in 2003.
"The digital economy enabled by ICT accounted for 37.8% of the Chinese economy in 2019," said Kitty Fok, managing director of IDC China, in a statement. "The macroeconomic disruption brought by the outbreak is expected to significantly affect China’s ICT market and drag it down by approximately 10% in the first quarter of 2020."
The impact of the coronavirus, officially named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, will gradually start to fade in the second quarter of this year, according to IDC, and will have a limited impact on the full year. Of the 10% ICT decline in the first quarter, IDC said there would be at least a 30% fall for PC and smartphone sales, and a greater than 15% decline for server, network and storage sales.
IDC said that artificial intelligence and big data would also be affected by the virus, but will "remain to grow" for the year. IDC said that emerging technologies, such as IoT and security, would experience "minimal declines." Overall, IDC predicts a 5.5% growth rate for the China ICT market this year.
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On Monday, Apple announced it wouldn't meet its expected revenue forecasts for the current quarter because of impact from the coronavirus outbreak, which it said has restricted iPhone production and lowered device demand in China, according to a story by FierceWireless.
