Global IT spend to hit $3.8 trn this year

Rising US dollar rates and reduction in device sales, IT services & telecom services reasons for low growth

Worldwide information technology (IT) spending is on pace to total $3.8 trillion in 2015, a 2.4 per cent increase from 2014, but the growth rate is less than the earlier projection of 3.9 per cent, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.  The slower outlook for 2015 is largely attributed to the rising US dollar as well as a modest reduction in growth expectations for devices, IT services and telecom services.

“The change in forecast is less dramatic than it might at first seem. The rising US dollar is chiefly responsible for the change — in constant currency terms the downward revision is only 0.1 per cent,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice-president at Gartner. “Stripping out the impact of exchange rate movements, the corresponding constant-currency growth figure is 3.7 per cent, which compares with 3.8 per cent in the previous quarter’s forecast.”

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets.

The outlook for IT services in 2015 has been reduced to 2.5 per cent growth, down from the 4.1 per cent growth forecast in the previous quarter. Globally, reductions to software support services contributed disproportionately to a lower outlook through 2018 because of lower growth rates expected for enterprise software.