Tech recovery will come in 2010, says Forrester

The tech downturn of 2008 to 2009 is unofficially over. After declining 8.2 per cent in 2009, information technology spending in the US will grow 6.6 per cent in 2010 to $568 billion. Global IT spending, which dropped 8.9 per cent last year, will rise 8.1 per cent in 2010 to more than $1.6 trillion, said a new report by Forrester Research.

“All the pieces are in place for a 2010 tech spending rebound. In the US, the tech recovery will be much stronger than the overall economic recovery, with technology spending growing at more than twice the rate of gross domestic product (GDP) this year,” said Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst.

“We have bumped up our forecasts based on three factors: the US tech market decline being not as deep as we had expected; the Asia Pacific market performing above expectations due to more resilient economies in Australia, China, and India; and a larger decline in the US dollar than we had assumed. The second and third factors also contribute to our higher forecast for 2010 growth of 8.1 per cent, compared with our prior forecast of 4.9 per cent,” said Bartel.