Worldwide IT spending to top $3,5 trillion
LONDON. - Worldwide IT spending will grow by 2,7 percent in 2017 to reach US$3,5 trillion (a staggering R47,5 trillion in soft-currency terms), according to a new forecast from Gartner.
The analyst firm said 2017 is poised to be a “rebound year” in IT spending, although its forecast is down from an earlier projection of 3 percent.
“Some major trends have converged, including cloud, blockchain, digital business and artificial intelligence. Normally, this would have pushed IT spending much higher than 2,7 percent growth,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice-president at Gartner in a statement.
“However, some of the political uncertainty in global markets has fostered a wait-and-see approach causing many enterprises to forestall IT investments.”
Worldwide device spending (PCs, tablets, ultra-mobiles and mobile phones) is projected to remain flat in 2017 at $589bn.
However, a replacement cycle in the PC market and strong pricing and functionality of premium ultra-mobiles will help drive growth in 2018, Gartner predicted.
Emerging markets will drive the replacement cycle for mobile phones as smartphones in these markets are used as a main computing device and replaced more regularly than in mature markets, it added.
The worldwide IT services market, meanwhile, is forecast to grow at a more robust pace of 4,2 percent in 2017.
“Buyer investments in digital business, intelligent automation and services optimisation and innovation continue to drive growth in the market, but buyer caution, fuelled by broad economic challenges, remains a counterbalance to faster growth.”
Aggressive expansion of cloud computing platforms by companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon will push the global server market to grow at 5,6 percent in 2017.
This was revised up from Gartner’s previous forecast and is sufficient growth to overcome an expected 3 percent decline in external controller-based storage and allow the data centre systems segment to grow by 2,6 percent in 2017.