Worldwide IT spending to touch $3.7 trillion in 2013

In the last quarter, Gartner's forecast for 2013 IT spending growth in US dollars was 4.1%

Worldwide IT spending is projected to touch $3.7 trillion in 2013, a 2% increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc, an information technology research and advisory company

 

Last quarter, Gartner’s forecast for 2013 IT spending growth in US dollars was 4.1%. The 2.1 percentage point reduction mainly reflects the impact of recent fluctuations in US dollar exchange rates; growth in constant currency is forecast at 3.5% for 2013, down only slightly from last quarter.

 

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the 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 recognize 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. 

 

“Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered. However, Western Europe’s constant-currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook.” 

	2012 Spendnig	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	4.1	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

The forecast for spending on devices in 2013 has been revised down from 7.9% growth in Gartner’s previous forecast to 2.8 percent (see Table). The decline in PC sales, recorded in the first quarter of 2013, continued into the second quarter 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%, while mobile phone revenue is projected to increase 7.4% this year.