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IT Spending to Top $3.65 Trillion in 2018

Global spending on information technology will reach $3.658 trillion in 2018, according to a new report from Gartner, up 4.3 percent over this year's projected $3.508 trillion.

Communications services will lead IT spending, accounting for $1.387 trillion this year, a 0.9 percent increase over 2016, to $1.417 trillion in 2018 for growth of 2.2 percent.

The second largest spending category, IT services, is projected to account for $931 billion in 2017, a year-over-year growth of 4 percent, and $980 billion next year, representing 5.3 percent growth.

Spending on devices will improve for the first time in two years, up 5.3 percent from last year to this for a 2017 total of $664 billion. Devices are the only category forecast to see a slowdown in growth from 2017 to 2018, growing at 5 percent to reach $697 billion next year.

"Increased average selling prices for premium phones in mature markets, partially due to the introduction of the iPhone 8 and 10, along with an underlying demand for PCs from businesses replacing their machines with Windows 10 PCs is driving the growth in this segment," according to Gartner.

The fourth largest category, enterprise software, will see the fastest growth rate across both years, improving 8.5 percent from 2016 to 2017 for a total spend of $354 billion and continuing to grow at 9.4 percent to reach $387 billion in 2018.

Spending on data center systems, on the other hand, will remain relatively flat, improving 1.7 percent this year to account for $173 billion in sales and 1.8 percent next year for total sales of $176 billion.

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].

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