IT spending is forecast to grow at 3.2 percent to $3.8 trillion in 2019 from $3.7 trillion expected in 2018, according to Gartner.
The report said currency volatility and the trade wars are still playing a part in the outlook for IT spending.
The shift from ownership to service is sending ripples in the IT industry. “What this signals is more enterprise use of cloud services — instead of buying their own servers, they are turning to the cloud. As enterprises continue their digital transformation efforts, shifting to pay for use will continue,” John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, said.
IT spending forecast
Enterprise software spending is forecast to grow at 8.3 percent in 2019. Software as a service (SaaS) is driving growth in almost all software segments, particularly customer relationship management (CRM), due to focus on providing better customer experiences.
Cloud software will grow at more than 22 percent this year compared with 6 percent growth for all other forms of software.
Core applications such as ERP, CRM and supply chain will top IT spending. Spending on security and privacy will get more priority. 88 percent of CIOs deployed or plan to deploy cybersecurity software and other technology in the next 12 months.
Data center systems are expected to grow 6 percent in 2018, buoyed by a server market that saw spending growth of more than 10 percent over the last year, and in 2018 will come in at 5.7 percent growth.
Servers will shift back to a declining market by 2019 and drop 1 percent to 3 percent every year for the next five years. This will impact overall data center systems spending as growth slows to 1.6 percent in 2019.
IT services market is forecast to grow at 4.7 percent to $1 trillion in 2019. A Gartner study said 46 percent of organizations indicated that IT services and supplier consolidation was in their top three most-effective cost-optimization approaches.
Worldwide spending for devices — PCs, tablets and mobile phones — is forecast to grow 2.4 percent in 2019, reaching $706 billion, up from $689 billion in 2018.
Demand for PCs in the corporate sector has been strong, driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades that should continue until 2020. PC market may see impact from the Intel CPU shortage. AMD will pick up the part of the market where Intel cannot supply CPUs.
