Tablets driving IT spend: Gartner

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 31 March 2011 13:44

IT Industry - Market

A leading industry analyst firm reckons tablets are having a significant effect on IT spending.

The latest forecast of 2011 global IT expenditure from Gartner has been raised from 5.1% to 5.6%. This is due at least in part to the inclusion of 'media tablets' such as the iPad in hardware spending estimates.

"The addition of media tablets, reinforced by an expected additional decline in the value of the dollar, accounts for the increase in top-line growth," according to Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner. "Absent the addition of media tablets, the forecast would have slightly declined in constant-dollar terms; however, with their addition, there's virtually no change in underlying forecast growth at the level of overall IT."

Compared with 2010, spending on hardware is expected to rise 9.5% to $US409 billion, enterprise software by 7.6% to $US255 billion. IT services by 5.0% to $US824 billion, and telecommunications by 4.9% to $US3598 billion.

The corresponding increases for the Asia Pacific region are forecast to be 10.7%, 12.8%, 11.7% and 9.7% respectively, for an overall increase of 10.2% - almost double the global percentage growth.

But there is one caveat: "We had largely completed our forecast by the time the recent natural disasters in Japan occurred, and we are still evaluating their likely impact on our forecast," said Mr Gordon. "On this point, we are looking at two potential effects on IT markets as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan: consequences of disruptions in the global electronics supply chain and impacts on IT demand."