According to the new International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Black Book, worldwide IT spending is expected to accelerate next year after dipping to its slowest pace of growth since the financial crisis in 2013. Overall tech spending is on course to increase by 4% this year at constant currency, reaching $2.04 trillion, down from last year’s growth of 5% due mainly to the slowdown in key emerging markets including China and Russia.
IDC forecasts that in 2014, a rebound in China and continued momentum in the US and Europe will see a return to overall industry growth of more than 5% (reaching $2.14 trillion).
Smartphones Still Driving Growth, but Infrastructure Set for Recovery
In fact, almost half of this year’s industry growth is due to continued strength in smartphone and tablet shipments. Excluding mobile phones, IT spending will increase by only 2.6% this year at constant currency (just 0.7% in US dollar terms, based on year-to-date exchange rates). Enterprise IT spending in many regions has been tepid since last year, with weaker spending on PCs, servers and storage than previously expected. Tentative signs of stability in commercial PC shipments during Q3, however, may foreshadow the gradual recovery in enterprise infrastructure investment which we expect to unfold in the next 12-18 months as a broad-based capital spending cycle kicks into gear. Spending on servers, storage and enterprise networks will increase by just 1% in 2013 before accelerating to growth of 4% next year.
“This has been a tough year for many IT vendors, with infrastructure spending in the first half of 2013 proving weaker than previously expected,” said Stephen Minton, Vice President in IDC’s Global Technology & Industry Research Organization (GTIRO). “The overall industry has been propped up by continued strength in mobile devices, especially smartphones, but the slowdown in emerging markets was another headwind for infrastructure-focused tech firms on top of government sequestration in the US and continued sluggish growth in Europe.”
US Market Is Resilient, Despite Politics
While the US is on course to post IT spending growth of 5% this year, this translates into just 3% excluding mobile phones. Enterprise spending in the US has been relatively resilient, given the ongoing political volatility, but spending on PCs and servers will decline this year while storage investment is flat. Both the storage and server markets in the US are expected to improve in 2014, but PC spending is likely to remain weak in spite of signs of stability in Q3 as tablet cannibalization continues at lower price points.
“The US market has held up pretty well, all things considered,” said Minton. “The main headwind, aside from uncertainty over the next round of political dogfighting, is cannibalization as tablets continue to eat into PC sales and as the Cloud eats into traditional IT services revenues. This cannibalization trend is seen across all geographies, and will be a constraint on IT spending even while the macroeconomic environment improves.”
To read the full IDC report, click here.