IDC’s Jessica Goepfert and Stephen Minton will host a special webinar on May 7 to provide an industry-level assessment of the impact COVID-19 on global IT spending.
Worldwide IT spending is forecast to decline 2.7 percent year due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Some industry verticals will reduce their IT spending more than others.
Hospitality and tourism-heavy industries such as transportation and personal and consumer services are expected cut their IT spending by 5 percent or more. However, both markets are relatively small in terms of IT spending.
Discrete and process manufacturing are large market opportunities with nearly $400 billion technology spending and face significant risks due to the virus with spending expected to fall by more than 3 percent in 2020.
IT spending by industries like government — federal and state/local spending — is predicted to increase slightly in 2020.
IT spending in the healthcare and telecommunications segments is forecast to grow slightly as they respond to new demands presented by the pandemic.
Professional services will see the strongest growth in IT spending this year with an expected year-over-year increase of 1.7 percent.
While industries that offer digitally-enabled or critical services offer some bright spots, those industries that rely on physical products, an in-person presence, or provide luxury services are struggling, said Jessica Goepfert, program vice president, Customer Insights & Analysis at IDC.
Small offices (less than 10 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees) will reduce their IT spending at 4.9 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.
Large businesses (500-999 employees) and very large businesses (more than 1,000 employees) are forecast to cut their IT spending by more than 1 percent this year representing a drop of $17 billion.
Hardware spending will decline more than 5 percent this year as companies pull back on most near-term infrastructure investments.
IT services and business services will see a more moderate cut in spending as companies focus on keeping their existing operations and mission-critical projects going.
Software spending will be growing at nearly 2 percent led by purchases of collaborative applications and content workflow and management applications.
As a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak, market conditions are changing fast, driven by daily developments in the pandemic and the response that governments are putting into place, said Serena Da Rold, program manager, Customer Insights & Analysis at IDC.
