IT Spending Approaches $4 Trillion

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 07/10/13

Worldwide IT spending will reach $3.7 trillion this year, according to the latest forecast from market research firm Gartner. The company's latest estimate forecasts a two percent growth rate, down just over two percent from their previous quarter's prediction of 4.1 percent, due mostly to changes in the dollar's exchange rate.

"Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth," said Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner, in a prepared statement. "Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered. However, Western Europe's constant-currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook."

Growth in all categories will improve in 2014, according to the company, when global IT spending will reach $4.1 trillion.

IT Spending by Category
The forecasted growth in spending on devices in 2013 has also been lowered significantly over last month's, dropping from 7.9 to just 2.8 percent. The category saw nearly 11 percent in 2012, rising to $676 billion. Despite the downturn in 2013, Gartner is predicting a strong showing from devices in 2014, with a growth rate of 6.5 percent pushing the category to $740 billion.

Enterprise software is the only category predicted by the company to grow more than three percent this year, at 6.4 percent. That's up significantly over the 4.7 percent growth it saw in 2012 and should push it up $19 billion to $304 billion in 2013.

"Growth expectations for customer relationship management (CRM) have been raised to reflect expanded coverage into e-commerce, social and mobile," according to information released by Gartner. "Expectations for digital content creation and operating systems have been reduced as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and changing device demands impact traditional models and markets."

Telecom services lags behind all other categories with a projected growth of just .9 percent this year, though "Fixed broadband is showing slightly higher than anticipated growth. The impact of voice substitution is mixed as it is moving faster in the consumer sector, but slightly slower in the enterprise market," according to a Gartner release.

Data center systems is on track to improve slightly over last year, growing 2.1 percent to reach $143 billion. IT services is en route to similar improvement, with a projected 2.2 percent growth rate as compared to two percent growth in 2012. If Gartner's predictions hold true, both categories will see much more dramatic growth in 2014 at 4.1 and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Additional information is available at Gartner's site. An on-demand webinar about the forecast is also available with sign-in at my.gartner.com.