Gartner has adjusted its worldwide IT spending forecast for 2013 downwards to US$3.7 trillion in 2013. Last quarter, the research firm predicted a 4,1 percent increase compared to 2012 but that projection has been sliced by half to 2 percent. This reduction takes into account the impact of recent fluctuations in US dollar exchange rates.
The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the a leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognise market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.
“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.
The forecast for spending on devices in 2013 has been revised down from 7.9 percent growth in Gartner’s previous forecast to 2.8 percent. The decline in PC sales, recorded in the Q1, continued into Q2 with little recovery expected during the second half of 2013. While new devices are set to hit the market in the second half of 2013, they will fail to compensate for the underlying weakness of the traditional PC market. The outlook for tablet revenue for 2013 is for growth of 2.8 percent, while mobile phone revenue is projected to increase 7.4 percent this year.
Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of US Dollars)
|
|
2012 Spending |
2012 Growth (%) |
2013 Spending |
2013 Growth (%) |
2014 Spending |
2014 Growth (%) |
| Devices |
676 |
10.9 |
695 |
2.8 |
740 |
6.5 |
| Data Center Systems |
140 |
1.8 |
143 |
2.1 |
149 |
4.1 |
| Enterprise Software |
285 |
4.7 |
304 |
6.4 |
324 |
6.6 |
| IT Services |
906 |
2.0 |
926 |
2.2 |
968 |
4.6 |
| Telecom Services |
1,641 |
-0.7 |
1,655 |
0.9 |
1,694 |
2.3 |
| Overall IT |
3,648 |
2.5 |
3,723 |
2.0 |
3,875 |
4.1 |
Source: Gartner (July 2013)
Enterprise software spending is on pace to grow 6.4 percent in 2013. Growth expectations for customer relationship management (CRM) have been raised to reflect expanded coverage into e-commerce, social and mobile. 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 spending is forecast to grow 0.9 percent in 2013. 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.
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