IDC: Tech Spending Is Growing, PC Market Is Shrinking

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Market researchers from IDC have released a pair of reports with good news and bad news for technology vendors. First the good news—the firm believes enterprise IT spending will increase 6 percent for 2013. However, the PC market will likely decline by 1.3 percent for the year.

Computerworld’s Patrick Thibodeau reported, “IDC is predicting a growth rate of 6% in IT spending in the U.S. this year, an amount that’s virtually unchanged from last year. The market research firm blamed a number of economic uncertainties for this flat spending increase, including the fiscal cliff, the potential for a GDP contraction and the ongoing problems in Europe. The growth rate might be ‘slightly higher’ if not for the sequester, but the IDC doesn’t say how much higher because of other uncertainties, according to Natasha Menon, an analyst in IDC’s Global Technology and Industry Research Organization.”

And eWeek quoted IDC’s Natasha Menon, who said, “We expect total IT spending by enterprises in Arizona, North Dakota, Utah and Texas to grow at the highest rates in the country over the next year at more than 7 percent across all industries. This growth is being driven by a high percentage of health care, manufacturing, and professional services businesses in these states, and IT spending aligns with economic projections of employment growth in these industries.”

ZDNet’s Rachel King noted, “In a report published on Monday, the IDC predicted that PC shipments will decline by 1.3 percent in 2013. That’s less than the 3.7 percent decline in 2012, but it’s still not terribly reassuring to PC makers and supply chain partners.”

InformationWeek’s Michael Endler added, “IDC anticipates that desktops will suffer the biggest slowdown with not only a 4.2% downtick this year but also continued, albeit slower, declines through at least 2017. The outlook is somewhat rosier for portable PCs; IDC projects shipments for these products will increase almost 1% in 2013, and that emerging markets will push this segment to 241 million units by 2017, a 19.3% increase from 2012. Recent PC models have failed to ‘gain traction’ and competition from tablets and other mobile devices has continued to take a toll, Loren Loverde, VP of IDC’s Worldwide PC Trackers group, said in a statement.”