The worldwide total addressable IT market is projected to grow 10.2 percent in 2026 to reach $6.07 trillion, continuing to outpace global GDP growth despite macroeconomic risks such as supply chain disruptions, rising trade tensions, political uncertainty, and geopolitical instability, Rachel Brindley, Senior Research Director at Omdia, said in a blog post.
Technology products will remain the largest and fastest-growing category, expanding 14.3 percent to $2.85 trillion, driven primarily by a 29.2 percent surge in infrastructure spending linked to large-scale AI deployments. Components and peripherals will also see strong growth as shortages of key components, including DRAM, push organizations to stockpile amid rising prices.
IT services are forecast to grow 9.6 percent to $1.87 trillion, marking the fastest expansion for the segment in several years, although hardware and software growth will still outpace services overall. Telecom services will grow more modestly at 3.3 percent, reaching $1.35 trillion.
Servers represent one of the fastest-growing infrastructure segments, with market size of $563 billion and growth of 44.5 percent, driven by AI workloads, hyperscale data centers, and enterprise modernization.
Service Provider Infrastructure segment, covering telecom and carrier infrastructure, is projected at $142 billion, growing 1.2 percent, reflecting mature investment cycles.
Networking equipment is forecast to reach $96 billion, with growth of 20.2 percent, supported by data center expansion and enterprise cloud connectivity needs.
Storage, Backup and Disaster Recovery segment is expected to total $65 billion, growing 7.6 percent, as data protection and resilience remain priorities.
Cloud application software is forecast at $631 billion, growing 23.5 percent, driven by SaaS adoption, AI-enabled applications, and digital transformation.
On-premises software continues to decline, with market size of $357 billion and negative growth of 5.7 percent, as workloads migrate to cloud platforms.
Other software segments together account for $220 billion, growing 3.3 percent, indicating steady but moderate demand.
Client computing devices are projected to reach $243 billion, declining 3.4 percent, reflecting PC market saturation and longer replacement cycles.
The smartphone market is forecast at $728 billion, with a decline of 1.1 percent, as replacement demand weakens in mature markets.
Imaging and Printing segment is expected to total $43 billion, declining 3.1 percent, continuing its long-term structural slowdown.
Components and peripherals are forecast at $244 billion, growing 15.9 percent, supported by AI servers, memory, and advanced semiconductors.
Managed services are projected to reach $650 billion, growing 9.8 percent, as enterprises outsource operations and cloud management.
Cloud Infrastructure Services segment is forecast at $493 billion, growing 24.3 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing areas in the IT market.
Maintenance and support services are expected to total $262 billion, with modest growth of 4.1 percent.
IT consulting is forecast at $215 billion, growing 8.7 percent, driven by cloud migration, AI strategy, and digital transformation programs.
Deployment and Integration segment is projected at $156 billion, growing 6.1 percent, supported by complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
IT outsourcing is forecast to reach $92 billion, growing 6.4 percent, reflecting steady enterprise demand for cost optimization.
Cybersecurity spending is forecast at $106 billion, growing 10.9 percent, driven by rising cyber threats, regulatory pressure, and cloud security needs.
Unified communications is expected to reach $66 billion, growing 3.9 percent, supported by hybrid work adoption.
Telecom services remain the largest single segment, totaling $1.354 trillion, but growing only 3.3 percent, reflecting market maturity.
Regionally, North America will lead with 12.6 percent growth and account for 43 percent of the global IT market. APAC is expected to grow 9 percent and represent 27 percent of the market, while EMEA will grow 8.1 percent with a 26 percent share. LATAM is forecast to expand 7.4 percent and account for the remaining 4 percent. The United States will remain the largest single-country market, contributing 40.8 percent of total spending, followed by China at 13.6 percent.
From a customer perspective, large enterprises, including the public sector, will account for 47 percent of total IT spending in 2026. SMBs with 1 to 499 employees are expected to represent 39.2 percent, while the mid-market segment will contribute 13.8 percent.
Omdia’s Enterprise IT Insights survey shows growing confidence in IT investment, with 72.9 percent of organizations expecting their IT budgets to increase in 2026, up from 60.2 percent in 2025. Nearly one-quarter of respondents anticipate budget growth of more than 10 percent, while only 6.5 percent expect a decline.
Partner-delivered IT spending is expected to grow 6.7 percent in 2026, a modest improvement from 6.3 percent in 2025, while vendor-delivered growth is forecast to surge 18.1 percent. This sharp acceleration is being driven by hyperscaler and neocloud investment in AI infrastructure, underscoring a structural shift in global IT spending toward direct vendor-led delivery models.
As hyperscalers continue to ramp up capital expenditure – first in cloud and now in AI infrastructure – the partner share of the total addressable IT market will continue its long-term decline, falling to 66.7 percent in 2026 from 70.1 percent in 2025.
Regionally, partner influence varies significantly. North America ($2.61 trillion) will see the lowest partner share at 61.1 percent in 2026, down from more than 70 percent four years ago. Latin America ($02.4 trillion) will retain the highest partner-delivered share at 78.1 percent, followed by EMEA ($1.56 trillion) at 72.2 percent, down from 80.1 percent in 2016, and Asia Pacific ($1.66 trillion) at 68.6 percent.
Despite the declining share, partners will remain central to customer IT decision-making, and overall spending through partners is expected to increase in 2026, supported by vendor strategies targeting SMB growth that rely heavily on partners and distributors. However, partners will face growing complexity and volatility, driven by rapid technology shifts, evolving customer expectations, hyperscale marketplace procurement, changing vendor relationships that favor larger partners, supply chain constraints, and geopolitical tensions.
Partners that invest in complementary and adjacent skills and build stronger services capabilities will be better positioned for growth. Creating differentiated value will require moving beyond siloed product-led sales models toward integrated sales motions that enable cross-sell and outcome-based offerings. Without this integration, partners will struggle to deliver advanced capabilities such as compliance services, secure-by-design infrastructure and cloud solutions, and industry-specific offerings for regulated environments.
Omdia estimates that channels account for 67 percent of global IT spending, underscoring the continued importance of partners even as the ecosystem becomes more complex and pressure on partner business models intensifies. To succeed in 2026, vendors will need to rethink how they design and run partner programs to better reflect partner value across increasingly diverse engagement models.
As customers now work with an average of 6.3 trusted partners, partner ecosystems are expanding and becoming more fragmented. Traditional partner definitions are blurring, with many partners operating multiple business models at once, including resale, managed services, and professional services. This complexity requires partner programs to move beyond rigid, tier-based structures toward models anchored around partner roles, value contribution, and customer lifecycle engagement.
A clear path to profitability will be critical, particularly one built around services-led opportunities. Incentives must evolve beyond transactional sales to reward partners for outcomes such as pre-sales engagement, up-selling and cross-selling, customer retention and renewals, and investments in training and certification. Value-based incentives aligned to these motions will be essential to sustain partner profitability.
Simplification and automation will also be central to vendor support strategies. Partners are demanding better user experiences, pushing vendors to move beyond basic partner relationship management portals toward integrated ecosystem management platforms. Unified data layers, AI-driven automation, and personalization will be required to replace siloed tools and fragmented data.
Co-creation and collaborative operating models are becoming the norm as partners increasingly work together across complex customer journeys. Vendors will need to support co-selling, co-marketing, co-innovation, and co-development, while improving their ability to track and recognize partner influence across multiple touchpoints in a deal.
Finally, success in 2026 will depend on effective engagement across a wider partner ecosystem. Vendors that invest in global system integrators, services partners, ISVs, alliance partners, and emerging routes to market such as hyperscaler marketplaces will be best positioned to drive growth and relevance in an increasingly ecosystem-driven IT market.
RAJANI BABURAJAN
