Gartner: IT Spending to Climb 4.1% in 2013

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Market research firm Gartner has revised its IT spending forecasts upward slightly and now predicts that global IT spending will rise 4.1 percent this year. Must of that rise will come from increased spending on devices–particularly smartphones and tablets.

The Business Standard’s Bibhu Ranjan Mishra reported, “Research and analyst firm, Gartner has marginally increased its worldwide IT spending growth guidance for 2013. According to the latest forecast by Gartner, global IT spending is projected to grow 4.1% in 2013 to total $3.8 trillion as against $3.6 trillion reported in the previous year. In its previous forecast issued in January this year, Gartner had estimated the total spending to touch $3.7 trillion in 2013.”

V3’s Dan Worth added, “Sales of devices, including PCs, tablets and printers, will account for $718bn of the market spend in 2013, up 7.9 percent on 2012, although PC sales will be flat during the year, the firm said. ‘Many people are now deciding to spend their money on a tablet or smartphone, rather than a PC, when they look to refresh their device ownership,’ Gartner managing vice president Richard Gordon told V3.”

Information Age’s Pete Swabey noted, “The predicted growth is almost double last year’s rate of 2.1%. Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner, said that this growth reflects growing economic confidence. ‘The US economy certainly seems to be starting to gain some traction, and while there’s still lots of uncertainty in Europe, there is at least a better understanding of the problem.'”

And eWeek quoted Gartner’s John Lovelock, who said, “The global steady growth rates are a calm ocean that hides turbulent currents beneath. The Nexus of Forces — social, mobile, cloud and information — are reshaping spending patterns across all of the IT sectors that Gartner forecasts. 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.”