Gartner ups its IT spending growth prediction

IntroGartner has increased its worldwide IT spending prediction for 2013 as reducing economic uncertainties boost investments. According to the analyst firm IT spending in 2013 will increase 4.2% compared with last year, reaching £2.28tn. This is a revision of Gartner’s prediction in the third quarter (Q3), which was for 3.8% growth. In 2012, IT spending increased 1.2% over the previous 12 months. "Uncertainties surrounding prospects for an upturn in global economic growth are the major retardants to IT growth," said Richard Gordon, managing vice-president at Gartner. "This uncertainty has caused the pessimistic business and consumer sentiment throughout the world. However, much of this uncertainty is nearing resolution and, as it does, we look for accelerated spending growth in 2013 compared with 2012." Enterprise software spending will see the highest growth in 2013 at 6.4%, reaching $316bn. It will also be the fastest growing sector in 2014 with Gartner predicting a 6.8% increase. Spending on devices including PCs, tablets and mobile phones will be $666bn in 2013, which represents 6.3% increase on 2012. Although significant, this has been reduced from 7.9% in Gartner previous prediction for 2013, as a result of the increase in sales of lower cost devices. "The tablet market has seen greater price competition from Android devices as well as smaller, low-priced devices in emerging markets," said Richard Gordon. "It is ultimately this shift toward relatively lower-priced tablets that lowers our average selling prices forecast for 2012 to 2016, which in turn is responsible for slowing device spending growth in general, and PC and tablet spending growth in particular." IT services investments will increase by more than 5% for the next two years, rising from $881bn in 2012 to $974bn in 2014.