Worldwide information technology (IT) spending is projected to total $3.76-trillion in 2019 – an increase of 3.2% on 2018 – reaching $3.87-trillion by 2020.
The latest forecast by research and advisory company Gartner shows growth across all segments in the next year, with IT services expanding 4.7% to $1.03-trillion and communications services by 1.3% to $1.4-trillion.
“Despite uncertainty fuelled by recession rumours, Brexit and trade wars and tariffs, the likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth,” says Gartner research VP John-David Lovelock.
“However, there are a lot of dynamic changes happening with regard to which segments will be driving growth in the future. “Spending is moving from saturated segments such as mobile phones, personal computers and on-premises data centre infrastructure to cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.”
While the devices segment remains saturated, IoT devices, in particular, are starting to “pick up the slack” and, despite a slowdown in the mobile phone market, the devices segment is expected to grow 1.6% to $679-billion in 2019.
“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organisations to run their business. It is becoming the engine that moves the business,” adds Lovelock.
A shift to cloud, which is a key driver of IT spending, will result in strong enterprise software growth, with worldwide software spending projected to grow 8.5% to $431-billion in 2019.
This will further increase 8.2% to $466-billion in 2020.
Data centre systems spending will grow 4.2% to $210-billion before contracting 3.9% in 2020 to $202- billion.