IT Spending to Grow 7.1 Percent This Year, Says Gartner

Worldwide spending on IT products and services is expected to grow 7.1 percent this year, according to recent data from Gartner (News - Alert).

That figure actually marks an upturn in the forecast from the first quarter when the research firm was eyeing only 5.6 percent growth. However, Gartner’s estimates came before the recent turmoil in the stock market and related ongoing concerns about the economy. So, as always, these numbers can be fluid.

But assuming Gartner’s latest forecast holds true, overall IT spending will reach $3.6 trillion this year, up from $3.4 trillion last year.

Looking at the four IT sectors analyzed by Gartner, the computer hardware market has the best outlook with spending estimated to grow 11.7 percent this year to $419 billion. Next in line is enterprise software where Gartner sees a 9.5 percent jump in spending to $268 billion.

Companies are expected to boost their spending on IT services by 6.6 percent to $846 billion. And finally, telecom services will see a 6.9 percent increase to $2.1 trillion.

Cloud-based services in particular are seeing increased demand, and Gartner expects spending in this segment to shoot up four times faster than spending on overall IT products and services. Businesses across the globe are projected to spend $89 billion on cloud services this year, up from $74 billion last year. And by 2015, spending in this area could reach $177 billion, according to Gartner.

But the cloud still marks only one small area of IT spending in general. Last year, only around 2 percent of global IT spending was on cloud services. And even by 2015, the number will still be less than 5 percent.

Gartner analyst Richard Gordon was surprised that the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan earlier this year didn’t create more of an impact on global IT spending given disruptions in the supply chain. For 2011 overall, the research firm expects IT spending in Japan to be down but sees growth for the second half of the year and on into 2012.

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