Consumer Spending on Digital Devices, Services and Content on the Rise

Consumers worldwide will spend up to $3.4 trillion on digital devices, services and content by 2020, according to an estimate from International Data Corp. The market research firm released its forecast as part of a newly launched research program, Consumer Spending Priorities: Tech and Services, which will analyze "consumer spending across all goods and services, payment methods, and transaction channels for current and emerging technologies."

While total consumer digital spending is going up, the share of spending on devices will actually fall from 28 percent in 2015 to only 22 percent by 2020, according to a statement from IDC. Instead, consumers will focus on digital content, with spending in that area expected to rise 12.6 percent annually. In addition, spending on digital services will grow 4.9 percent annually.

"Clearly the value of the devices is derived primarily as conduits for the content and services that they transport and the applications that they enable," said Jonathan Gaw, research manager for IDC's Consumer Spending Priorities: Tech and Services program, in a prepared statement.

IDC attributes the market changes to the evolving behavior of international consumers. "Much of the change in consumer spending categories is driven by regions outside of the United States, where the shift among spending categories continues but is largely complete and the share of spending by solution type is largely stable," the firm said in a press release. "In developing countries, however, consumer spending on digital content and services, versus devices, is still gaining, while online media spending also increases in wallet share."

For more information on the Consumer Spending Priorities program, visit the IDC site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • stylized illustration of an open laptop displaying the ChatGPT interface

    'Early Version' of ChatGPT Windows App Now Available to Paid Users

    OpenAI has announced the release of the ChatGPT Windows desktop app, about five months after the macOS version became available.

  • interconnected cloud icons with glowing lines on a gradient blue backdrop

    Report: Cloud Certifications Bring Biggest Salary Payoff

    It pays to be conversant in cloud, according to a new study from Skillsoft The company's annual IT skills and salary survey report found that the top three certifications resulting in the highest payoffs salarywise are for skills in the cloud, specifically related to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Nutanix.

  • computer with a red warning icon on its screen, surrounded by digital grids, glowing neural network patterns, and a holographic brain

    Report Highlights Security Risks of Open Source AI

    In these days of rampant ransomware and other cybersecurity exploits, security is paramount to both proprietary and open source AI approaches — and here the open source movement might be susceptible to some inherent drawbacks, such as use of possibly insecure code from unknown sources.

  • Three cubes of noticeably increasing sizes are arranged in a straight row on a subtle abstract background

    A Sense of Scale

    Gardner Campbell explores the notion of scale in education and shares some of his own experience "playing with scale" — scaling up and/or scaling down — in an English course at VCU.