Singapore - Small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) are forecast to spend 2.8 billion US dollars on data security related investments across the Asia-Pacific region next year, up 26 per cent over 2007, a study said on Monday. The four key markets - Australia, South Korea, India and China - are expected to account for more than 75 per cent of Asia's total security spending this year, said Access Markets International (AMI) Partners Inc.
China alone will account for more than 33 per cent of the spending, said the findings published in The Business Times.
The New York-headquartered research house defines SMBs as commercial companies with up to 999 employees.
SMBs have seen good business growth in 2007 and are positive about 2008 as well, Prasannavadan Gaitonde, AMI's Singapore-based manager of telecoms practices across the Asia-Pacific, told the newspaper.
"About 40 per cent of SMBs in Singapore told AMI that they plan to hire more staff this year and 11 per cent said they plan to add new sites," he was quoted as saying.
