Infotech spend rebound tipped

Spending on information technology will rebound this year after a dip in 2020 — and grow strongly in 2022, market-research firm Gartner says.

Total IT spending in New Zealand dipped

1.6 per cent to $12.5 billion in 2020.

The outbreak saw several competing trends in IT, some firms putting major upgrades on hold amid recession fears, others accelerating shifts to cloud-based systems amid the work-from-home boom — which helped make enterprise software the only area of growth. The remote-working spike also saw PC sales hit an all-time high.

But many cut spending elsewhere to fund that new laptop or monitor. Smartphone sales crashed. For example, in the three months to September 2020, total NZ smartphone sales were 155,000 handsets, falling by almost half from Q3 2019’s

308,000. Smartphone makers Apple and Samsung were able to stockpile chips (at the expense of the slower-moving car-makers), avoiding delays — but in the handset market demand cooled regardless (Apple managed a record year in NZ and worldwide regardless as tablet and Mac sales boomed).

From spending so far and its forecast, Gartner projects a 2.7 per cent increase in NZ IT spending to $12.8b this year — an increase over pre-pandemic levels (total NZ IT spending in 2019 was $12.7b).

And in 2022, it sees a 5.7 per cent lift to $13.6b. A bounce-back on spending on devices and a further lift in enterprise software spending is forecast, with Gartner tipping a boom in spending on social software, collaboration platforms, and HR software as firms shift to hybrid workplaces.