Global IT spend to increase to $3.7 trillion in 2018 - Gartner
Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion (USD) in 2018, an increase of 4.3% from 2017 estimated spending of $3.5 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.
The research and analysis company says enterprise software and IT services continue to exhibit strong global growth, with communications services continuing to drive the majority of spending.
The forecast also indicates growth in software spending of 8.5% in 2017, growing a further 9.4% in 2018 to total $387 billion.
IT services spending is on pace to grow by 4% in 2017, reaching $931 billion, with an increase of 5.3% in 2018 to reach $980 billion.
Interestingly, the devices segment is also expected to exhibit growth for the first time in two years with an increase of 5.3% in 2017 and 5% in 2018.
This has likely been due to an increase in the average selling prices for premium phones in mature markets (such as the Apple iPhone 8 and X), along with an underlying demand in PCs for businesses replacing their machines with equipment that supports Windows 10.
While all IT spending segments are expected to experience growth in 2017, Gartner has identified 10 markets within these segments that will make up the most dynamic portion of the IT spending forecast in 2018.
These 10 markets include three cloud segments; infrastructure as a service (IaaS), integrated platform as a service (iPaas) and communications platform as a service (cPaaS).
They also include workstream collaboration, workforce analytics, video message-oriented middleware (MOM), security (endpoint detection and response), analytics (smart data discovery) and storage (in-memory data grids).
John-David Lovelock, Gartner research vice president says, "Looking at market opportunity — how profitable a market is, how big it is and how fast is it growing today and for the next five years — we have identified the top markets that companies should be looking to be part of in 2018.
"Global IT spending is showing little overall growth, as are traditional markets. These top 10 markets will be the key to remaining relevant and achieving growth in the future," he says
"The IT buying landscape is changing: Digital business transformation is an effort to create connected, platforms and new industry revenue streams."
Lovelock also says that organisations focus their digital transformation efforts on creating new connected platforms and revenue streams.
"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 more quickly than their clients, will be left behind."
Gartner's IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on analysis of sales by thousands of vendors across the entire range of IT products and services.
Gartner says it uses primary research techniques, as well as secondary research sources to build a comprehensive database of market size data on which to base its forecast.
