India's IT spending to grow 9% to $87 bn in 2018: Gartner

India's IT spending is projected to grow 9.2 per cent $87.1 billion in 2018 on the back of consumer demand for smartphones and businesses embracing technology to be ahead of their peers, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.

In 2017, India spent $79.7 billion on technology, as organisations across sectors used technology to improve efficiency and grow business, the researcher said in a statement.

"Digital business transformation is creating connected platforms and new industry revenue streams," said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, managing vice president at Gartner India. "Organisations that are not creating new digital business models, or new ways to engage constituents or customers, are falling behind. Those vendors that do not move quicker than their clients, will be left behind."

“Digital disruptor are emerging in all industries. We have seen this in books, clothing, and now it’s happening in other industries such as traditional grocery markets and consumer durables as well,” he said.

Enterprise software and IT services continue to exhibit strong growth, with devices segment continuing to drive the majority of overall IT spending in India. Software spending is projected to grow 17.9 per cent in 2017, and it will grow another 15.3 per cent in 2018 to reach $5.7 billion. IT services spending is on pace to grow 15.7 per cent in 2017 to reach $12.6 billion, and increase 13.8 per cent in 2018 to reach $14.3 billion.

The devices segment is expected to register an increase of 23.2 per cent in 2017 and 13 per cent in 2018. Increased average selling prices for premium phones in mature markets, partially due to the introduction of the iPhone 8 and X, along with an underlying demand for PCs from businesses replacing their machines with Windows 10 PCs is driving the growth in this segment, it said.