Information technology research and advisory company, Gartner says worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach $3.6 trillion in 2012, a 3% increase from 2011 spending of $3.5 trillion.<\/p>\n
Gartner’s 2012 IT spending outlook has been revised up slightly from the 2.5% projection last quarter.<\/p>\n
Gartner says its IT spending forecast is relied upon by more than 75% of the global 500 companies in their key technology decisions.<\/p>\n
“While the challenges facing global economic growth persist \u2014 the eurozone crisis, weaker US recovery, a slowdown in China \u2014 the outlook has at least stabilised,” said Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner. “There has been little change in either business confidence or consumer sentiment in the past quarter, so the short-term outlook is for continued caution in IT spending.”<\/p>\n
However, there are some bright spots for IT providers, it noted. In contrast to a rather\u00a0lackluster\u00a0growth outlook for overall IT spending, Gartner expects enterprise spending on public cloud services to grow from $91 billion worldwide in 2011 to $109 billion in 2012. By 2016, enterprise public cloud services spending will reach $207 billion.<\/p>\n
“Business process as a service (BPaaS) still accounts for the vast majority of cloud spending by organisations, but other areas such as platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are growing faster,” Gordon said.<\/p>\n
Worldwide IT services spending is forecast to reach $864 billion in 2012, a 2.3% increase from 2011. Demand for consulting services is expected to remain high due to the complexity of environments for global business and technology leaders.<\/p>\n
Gartner analysts said consulting itself is becoming increasingly technology-based with the rise of analytics and big data, having deep implications on the future of consulting services.<\/p>\n
Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of US Dollars) <\/strong><\/p>\n Source: Gartner (July 2012)<\/em><\/p>\n The global telecom services market continues to be the largest IT spending market, Gartner said. Telecom services growth is expected to come not only from net connections, especially in emerging markets, but also in mature markets from the uptake of multiple connected devices, such as media tablets, gaming and other consumer electronics devices, it added.<\/p>\n Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest companies in the world<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Tech is no safe haven say analysts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Tech growth stabilizes, but lower \u2013 Gartner<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n Category<\/strong><\/td>\n 2011 Spend
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n2011 Growth (%)
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n2012 Spend<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n 2012 Growth (%)<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n 2013 Spend<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n 2013 Growth (%)<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Computing Hardware<\/td>\n 404<\/td>\n 7.4<\/td>\n 420<\/td>\n 3.4<\/td>\n 448<\/td>\n 6.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Enterprise Software<\/td>\n 269<\/td>\n 9.8<\/td>\n 281<\/td>\n 4.3<\/td>\n 301<\/td>\n 6.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n IT Services<\/td>\n 845<\/td>\n 7.7<\/td>\n 864<\/td>\n 2.3<\/td>\n 905<\/td>\n 4.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Telecom Equipment<\/td>\n 340<\/td>\n 17.5<\/td>\n 377<\/td>\n 10.8<\/td>\n 408<\/td>\n 8.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Telecom Services<\/td>\n 1,663<\/td>\n 6.0<\/td>\n 1,686<\/td>\n 1.4<\/td>\n 1,725<\/td>\n 2.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n All IT<\/strong><\/td>\n 3,523<\/strong><\/td>\n 7.9<\/strong><\/td>\n 3,628<\/strong><\/td>\n 3.0<\/strong><\/td>\n 3,786<\/strong><\/td>\n 4.4<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n