STAMFORD, CONN., June 13, 2006 - Worldwide IT services revenue totaled $624.4 billion in 2005, a 6 percent increase from 2004 revenue of $588.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

"Traditionally, the outsourcing service segment has been the key growth area for the worldwide IT services market, but that trend was altered in 2005," said Kathryn Hale, research vice president for Gartner's worldwide IT services group. "In 2005, project-based services and software support grew at a greater rate than the overall market average, which has not been the case since 2000."

IBM continued to be the worldwide market leader, but its growth rate was below the industry average. Accenture and CSC were the only vendors in the top 6 that experienced revenue growth rates above the overall market average.

Health care organizations provided the greatest growth in spending on external IT services providers in 2005, however this segment is relatively small compared to other verticals. The health care category increased its spending from $17.9 billion in 2004 to $19.4 billion in 2005, representing a growth rate of 8.7 percent. The financial services market continued to be the largest vertical for IT services revenue with revenue totaling $141.3 billion in 2005, a 7 percent increase from 2004.

In the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region IT services revenue totaled 173 billion euros in 2005, a 5.8 percent increase from 2004.

"Project-based services, that is consulting, development and integration, returned to a healthier growth in 2005 with a 5.6 percent increase from 2004," said Robert De Souza, principal research analyst at Gartner in EMEA. "In addition, process management grew almost 2 percent higher than the average market growth with an increase of 7.9 percent compared to last year."

The top five vendors remain the same as last year with some movement in ranking. IBM maintained its No.1 position while decreasing its market share slightly. Hewlett-Packard lost its No. 2 position to Accenture who moved up from the No.4 spot and increased its market shares to 3.7 percent in 2005. T-Systems' market shares dropped slightly in 2005 pushing it down to No.4 position.

These estimates are preliminary at this time. Detailed market share statistics are scheduled to be published in August. The data published covers approximately 450 IT services vendors, seven geographic regions, 40 countries, six IT services segments, six IT platforms, 14 vertical industries and in 37 countries.