IT spending set to stay strong despite global economic worries
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According to Gartner’s latest forecast, global IT spending is expected to reach $4.6 trillion in 2023, up 5.1% from 2022.
The analyst house expects companies to “make progress with digital business initiatives,” despite economists worldwide predicting a possible recession on the horizon.
Economists at the IMF, to cite just one example, have forecast an “increasingly bleak and uncertain outlook”, with baseline international economic growth forecast to slow down (opens in new tab) from 6.1% in 2021 to 3.2% in 2022 and only 2.9% in 2023.
Where will spending increase the most?
Gartner warns that not all industries are set for equal growth, and that device spending is likely to be the worst-performing of all IT segments surveyed.
The analyst house forecast that device spending will fall -0.6 to $735,394 million in 2023, a sharp drop from growth of 15.8% in 2021.
The software market appears to be the best-performing IT segment, growing by 11.3% in 2023 to $879,625 million, which the company attributed to the “shift to cloud options.”
The software segment’s impressive performance may be related to continued demand for tools that enable video conferencing and remote collaboration after the pandemic.
IT services are expected to be the second best performing segment, growing 7.9% in 2023 to $1,357,914 million in 2022.
Data center systems and communications services are also poised for solid growth, if Gartner’s statistics are to be believed, with projected growth of 3.4% and 2.4% respectively in those areas.
“Enterprise IT spending is recession-proof as CEOs and CFOs, instead of slashing IT budgets, are increasing spending on digital business initiatives,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “Economic turbulence will change the context for technology investment, increasing spending in some areas and accelerating declines in others, but is not expected to materially impact the overall level of business technology spending.”
“In almost every country in the world, however, inflation has reduced consumer purchasing power. Consumer purchasing power has declined to such an extent that many consumers are delaying device purchases in 2022 until 2023, reducing device spending by 8.4% in 2022 and 0.6% in 2023.”
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