With the global economy showing signs of a gradual recovery, worldwide IT spending is on pace to total $3.8trillion in 2014, a 3.2per cent increase from 2013 spending, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.
“Globally, businesses are shaking off their malaise and returning to spending on IT to support the growth of their business,” said Richard Gordon, Managing Vice President at Gartner. “Consumers will be purchasing many new devices in 2014; however, there is a greater substitution toward lower cost and more basic devices than we have seen in prior years.”
The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.
The devices market (including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones and tablets) is forecast to return to growth in 2014, with worldwide spending of $689 billion, a 4.4 per cent increase from 2013. However, in top-line spending, a shift in the product mix continues to be seen in the marketplace. Demand for highly priced premium phones is slowing, with buyers in mature countries preferring midtier premium phones, while those in emerging countries favor low-end Android basic phones.
The number of traditional PC users is contracting to a set of fewer, albeit more engaged, users. In general, consumers are opting to buy premium ultramobiles as notebook replacements and purchasing tablets as additional devices. As market power shifts to the buyer, and key product innovations become ubiquitous, product pricing is becoming the primary differentiator.