The analyst firm Gartner has predicted that worldwide IT spending will hit $3.9 trillion this year, representing an increase of 6.2% compared to 2020. The Enterprise Software and Devices categories are expected to see the biggest performers with 8.8% growth and 8% growth respectively.
In its projection, Gartner includes Data Center Systems, Enterprise Software, Devices, IT Services and Communications Services as part of IT spending. During 2020, all of these segments saw zero or negative growth but in 2021 all of them will see growth between 4.5% and 8.8% with spend between $228.3 billion and $1.4 trillion.
With the pandemic, businesses decided to spend their money on technology and services that were deemed mission-critical; this led to lower spending in other areas leading to poor performance in those segments during 2020. As we all know, the pandemic forced people to start working from home so spending on services and devices was not hit as hard as it could have been.
Assuming that nothing drastic happens over the next year, Gartner predicts that each of the sectors will see continued growth in 2022 as well. Enterprise Software is expected to reach 10.2% growth compared to 2021 where it saw 8.8% growth, IT Services growth will also jump from 6% in 2021 to 6.3% in 2022. Predictably, growth of the Devices sector will drop from 8% in 2021 to just 1.3% in 2022 as lots of new hardware will have been purchased to deal with home working and people, therefore, do not need to upgrade as soon as 2022.