Norwegian outsourcing market grew 23% in 2004

In a study of the Norwegian outsourcing market, IDC estimates that revenue reached almost NOK 8 bln in 2004 ($1.3 bln in US dollars), while growth reached almost 23%. However, much of this growth is a technicality and comes from the fact that Telenor and Posten opened for competition on outsourcing, so that revenue from original outsourcing contracts, previously regarded as captive, is now recognized as part of the open market, resulting in higher apparent market growth. If these contracts were excluded, growth would be 7% to 8%, which while higher than in other parts of the IT services market, is lower than outsourcing growth in most other European countries. IDC expects that growth will exceed 20% over the next year