|
The report tracks the capital acquisitions of Irish companies by sector, between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2002. Capital acquisitions are the amount of money that companies spent on property and equipment during the quarter.
This statistics do not give any indication as to whether the companies have an adequate amount of IT and telecoms infrastructure for their business needs. Companies who invested heavily in infrastructure during the dot-com bubble and during their Y2K preparations may still have adequate or even excessive ICT infrastructure to allow them to carry out their business effectively.
The total figure for capital acquisitions by all Irish companies was 918.3 million, down 19 percent from the same quarter in the previous year. Total capital acquisitions by Ireland's computer industry were EUR27.5 million, only one quarter of the EUR103.4 million spent in the corresponding period in 2001. Telecommunications companies only spent EUR26.6 million, down from EUR267.6 million in the first quarter of 2001, reflecting the extent to which these companies have had to cut back on expenditure.
It is no surprise that the computer and telecoms industry are cutting back on capital expenditure, when other sectors have slashed their IT and telecoms spending.
Irish companies only spent EUR33.2 million on hardware and software in the first quarter of 2002, as opposed to EUR47.3 million in the first quarter of 2001, a reduction of 30 percent. Even IT and telecom companies spent only EUR4 million on hardware and software, down from EUR18 million year-on-year.
The biggest increase in capital acquisitions was in the electricity and gas sector, which spent EUR255 million, compared with EUR130 million for the same quarter in the previous year, reflecting the on- going spend on national infrastructure for homes and businesses.
|
