Small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the Asia-Pacific excluding the Japan region will spend $6.5 billion more in 2009 compared with the year before. Chinese, Korean, and Indian SMBs make up more than 50% of Asia Pacific spending, according to a latest study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners.

IT and telecom spending by China SMBs will alone constitute close to 30% of the total spending by Asia Pacific SMBs in 2009. Korea, a relatively more mature market, is on track with about 20% of total Asia-Pacific SMB spending, while India SMBs are expected to chalk up 8.5% higher growth than last year's spending, making India the fastest growing SMB ICT market in Asia-Pacific for 2009.

"While we expect more than 2% spending contraction in Australia and New Zealand SMB markets, they only make up about 10% of the total IT and telecom spending among Asia-Pacific SMBs. Spending growth from bigger SMB markets in China, Korea and India - even if it is slower than last year - will easily compensate for the reduction among Australia and New Zealand SMBs," says Dr. Vu-Thanh Nguyen, a Singapore-based Research Analyst at AMI-Partners. "These big spenders, together with other growing markets like Indonesia and Malaysia will help to maintain a spending growth of 4.5% for the whole of Asia-Pacific."

Telecom services and computing, like printers and printing supplies, PCs, and servers, are the two broad categories that will receive significant investment by Asia-Pacific SMBs, about 60% of their total IT and telecom spending.

While Australia and New Zealand industries will reduce their IT and telecom spending in 2009, SMBs in other Asia Pacific countries will expand their investment, though at different rates. For example, spending growth rates are lower in China real estate and retail industries, but higher among Chinese pharmaceuticals and life sciences. In India, SMBs across all industries are expected to lower their spending growth rates by 1 to 2%. A similar trend is expected for Vietnam SMBs across industries, though with a much smaller magnitude of less than 0.5%.