Global IT Spending to Reach $3.8T in 2013 - Gartner Says

Gartner, Inc. predicts that worldwide IT spending in 2013 will reach $3.8 trillion, an amount which represents a 4.1 percent growth from the $3.6 trillion global IT spending in 2012.

"The Nexus of Forces - social, mobile, cloud and information - are reshaping spending patterns across all of the IT sectors that Gartner forecasts," said John Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. "Consumers and enterprises will continue to purchase a mix of IT products and services; nothing is going away completely. However, the ratio of this mix is changing dramatically and there are clear winners and losers over the next three to five years, as we see more of a transition from PCs to mobile phones, from servers to storage, from licensed software to cloud, or the shift in voice and data connections from fixed to mobile."

According to Gartner, worldwide spending on devices, such as mobile phones, PCs, printers, and tablets, is expected to top $718 billion this year, a 7.9 percent increase from 2012. Flat spending on PCs is expected, while spending on printers shows decline. The short-term surge on spending on premium mobile phones is what drives the global device sales on Gartner's "Worldwide IT Spending Forecast 1Q13 Update," where a revision from the prior 6.3 percent forecast is reported.

This year, spending on data center systems is predicted by Gartner to increase 3.7 percent, a 0.7 percent decline from the earlier Gartner forecast. The decrease is mainly attributed to spending cuts on external storage, as well as the enterprise in the beleaguered Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

2013's global spending on enterprise software is expected to reach $297 billion, a 6.4 percent upsurge from last year's spending. Although this sector's growth has stayed the same after Gartner revised its forecast, the predicted figure underscores major "changes at a market level, as stronger growth expectations for database management systems (DBMS), data integration tools and supply chain management compensate for lower growth expectations for IT operations management and operating systems software."

The prospect for IT services - including consulting, cloud services, maintenance, and outsourcing - has relatively stagnated from last quarter's outlook. However, ongoing uncertainty among the buyers of IT services promotes robust competition, as well as cost pressure when it comes to mature IT outsourcing (ITO) and budget reallocated away from new consulting projects and implementation.

The market for worldwide telecom services is still the biggest IT spending segment. According to Gartner, this market sector is expected to remain relatively flat for the next several years, characterized by a decline on voice services spending and balanced by a robust increase in mobile data services spending. (KOM) Link. Link. Link. Link.