by Christine Easterfield
@Cambashi_Chris
LinkedIn
After a decade or so of following the fortunes of emerging nations Brazil, India, China and Russia, the so-called BRIC nations, and watching them become more and more established as thriving economies, it is surely time to look for the next wave of newcomers.
At the beginning of the year, a report on the BBC would have us believe this next group is Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. Apart from an easy acronym, MINT, what can we – as an engineering software marketing community – make from this report?
The basis of the BBC report seems to be a combination of a projected fast rise in GDP coupled with good geography, for example Mexico already has very close links with the US and Indonesia is allied with China. Cambashi’s latest Market Observatories, published for the first quarter of 2014 and which focus on the opportunity for technical applications software, present a supportive view.
The Cambashi Country Observatory shows growth in spending on technical applications worldwide to be a steady 4% when measured in USD for 2013. Focusing in on the BRIC nations we see that all show double digit growth of between 10% and 16% when measured in local currency. (The picture is altered somewhat when viewed in USD, with China still strong at 17% and Russia at 10%, but India down in single digit growth at 6% and Brazil falling to barely positive growth at 0.05% – never underestimate the impact of currency variations).
How does this compare with spending on technical applications in the MINT nations? Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey also have double digit growth of between 11% and 15%. Mexico is the laggard at just over 7% but this is still stronger than that worldwide figure of 4%. Again these are measured in local currency – apart from Nigeria for which we record transactions in USD – as, in our view, local currency provides a clearer measure of actual investment in country.
So clearly the MINT nations are ones to watch, but our observatories also show strong growth in local spending on technical applications in, for example, Vietnam (16%) and South Africa (14%) – so don’t be distracted by a convenient acronym.