Worldwide IT spending is set to decline by 1.3 percent to USD 3.66 trillion this year, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. The analyst has had to substantially revise its January estimate of a 2.4 percent growth due above all to the US dollar’s rise against most global currencies. “The recent rapid rise in the value of the US dollar against most currencies has put a currency shock into the global IT market,” said Gartner. Stripping out the impact of exchange rate movements, the corresponding IT spending growth at constant-currency rates would be 3.1 percent, the report said.
The US dollar spending growth rate on devices (including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones, tablets and printers) for 2015 is expected to decrease by 1.2 percentage points to USD 685 billion. Spending for all devices in 2015 was revised down partly due to a slowdown in PC purchases in Western Europe, Russia and Japan, countries where local currency has devalued against the dollar. However, Gartner said spending in the mobile phone market is not as affected by the currency shifts and the substantial change in the phone mix in emerging markets toward lower-priced smartphones negates price increases of premium phones, resulting in flat phone average selling prices between 2014 and 2015.
Data centre systems spending is projected to reach USD 142 billion in 2015, a 0.4 percent increase from 2014, while the enterprise software market will grow to USD 320 billion, up 2.3 percent year on year, predicted Gartner.
The sharpest fall in spending will be seen in telecom services, which is projected to shrink by 2.6 percent to USD 1.57 trillion in 2015 due to reductions in total connections for developed markets because growth in data-only connected devices and multi-SIM connections were not as high as previously expected.
