Gartner Says Global IT Spending will Reach $3.5Tn in 2017

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.5 trillion in 2017, a 2.7% increase from 2016.

This is according to new research from Gartner. However, the expected growth rate is still down from earlier projections of 3%.

"2017 was poised to be a rebound year in IT spending. Some major trends have converged, including cloud, blockchain, digital business and artificial intelligence. Normally, this would have pushed IT spending much higher than 2.7% growth," says John-David Lovelock, research VP at Gartner.

"However, some of the political uncertainty in global markets has fostered a wait-and-see approach causing many enterprises to forestall IT investments."

Gartner also predicts that devices spending (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) is projected to remain flat in 2017 at $589 billion. A replacement cycle in the PC market and strong pricing and functionality of premium ultramobiles will help drive growth in 2018.

Emerging markets will drive the replacement cycle for mobile phones as smartphones in these markets are used as a main computing device and replaced more regularly than in mature markets, according to the IT research firm.

The worldwide IT services market is forecast to grow 4.2% in 2017. Buyer investments in digital business, intelligent automation, and services optimisation and innovation continue to drive growth in the market, but buyer caution, fuelled by broad economic challenges, remains a counter-balance to faster growth.

"The range of spending growth from the high to low is much larger in 2017 than in past years. Normally, the economic environment causes some level of division; however, in 2017, this is compounded by the increased levels of uncertainty," says Lovelock.

"The result of that uncertainty is a division between individuals and corporations that will spend more − due to opportunities arising − and those that will retract or pause IT spending."

For example, aggressive build-out of cloud computing platforms by companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon is pushing the global server forecast to reach 5.6% growth in 2017. This was revised up 3% from last quarter's forecast and is sufficient growth to overcome the expected 3% decline in external controller-based storage and allow the data centre systems segment to grow 2.6% in 2017.