Mumbai: Anticipating huge IT spent by the small and medium businesses (SMBs), IT major Hewlet-Packard said that it would focus on emerging business areas like real estate, auto component and ITeS sectors.

“These are real emerging areas in the SMB space. We aim to capture a sizeable market in these areas,” HP India Sales Director (SMB) Ashok Pamidi said after announcing a deal with Hiranandani Group.

Hiranadani Group today inked a deal with Hewlet-Packard to implement IT infrastructure across its head office in Mumbai and branch offices across the country.

Quoting a Gartner report, Pamidi said that only the construction industry in the SMB space is likely to spend $45.4 million by 2012 on IT from approximately $28 million in 2008.

“HP offers entire IT infrastructure and IT softwares in the SMB space,” he said.

A recent report prepared by Microsoft and IT research and Consultancy firm AMI Partners said that the share of Indian SMBs in the total IT spend would grow by 24% , fastest among all BRIC countries.

Pamidi said that SMBs are spending more on IT now due to increased efficiency and reduced costs.