After years of having consumers lead the way in IT spending, businesses are finally starting to hold up their end, according to a new report released today by research firm Gartner.
The research firm expects total worldwide IT spending to hit $3.8 trillion this year, up 3.2 percent from 2013. Gartner credits the slow but recovering world economy for the lift in spending as companies attempt to better support their businesses.
"Globally, businesses are shaking off their malaise and returning to spending on IT to support the growth of their business," said Richard Gordon, Gartner managing vice president. "Consumers will be purchasing many new devices in 2014; however, there is a greater substitution toward lower cost and more basic devices than we have seen in prior years."
During the height of the global recession consumer buying helped keep IT spending from plummeting. Despite having fewer dollars to spend people snapped up new products like tablets and smartphones.
Gartner broke spending down into five categories; devices, data center systems, enterprise software, IT services and telecom services.
Spending on devices, which includes PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones and tablets, is expected to rise 4.4 percent to $689 billion for 2014. This number, while positive, was negatively impacted in several ways. First, buyers in mature markets are opting to avoid high-priced mobile phones and instead purchasing mid-tier models, while those in developing regions are going for low-end Android models, states the report.
The shift away from PCs is also having an impact as consumers and businesses go for tablets and ultra mobile laptops when replacing older computers.
Data center spending will rise a modest 2.3 percent to $143 billion as companies look to add more mobile phones and cloud services to their mix.
The enterprise software market is on pace to total $320 billion, a 6.9 percent increase from 2013, making it the fastest growing segment in this study.
"The Nexus of Forces (the convergence of social, mobile, cloud and information) continues to drive growth across key major software markets, such as CRM, database management systems, data integration tools and data quality tools," Gordon said.
IT services will see a 4.6 percent increase to $964 billion and telecom services will remain just above flat, posting a 1.3 percent increase, although in total dollars this remains the largest category at $1.7 billion.
