Telecom Lead Asia: Growth in IT spending of telecom services market will be 2.4 percent in 2013 to touch $1,701 billion.

Gartner says growth will be predominately flat over the next several years as revenue from mobile data services compensates for the declines in total spending for both the fixed and mobile voice services markets.

By 2016, mobile data will represent 33 percent of the total telecom services market, up from 22 percent in 2012.

Devices spending which include PCs, tablets, mobile phones and printers will reach $666 billion in 2013, up 6.3 percent from 2012.

The tablet market has seen greater price competition from android devices as well as smaller, low-priced devices in emerging markets. It is ultimately this shift toward relatively lower-priced tablets that lowers Gartner’s average selling prices forecast for 2012 through 2016, which in turn is responsible for slowing device spending growth in general, and PC and tablet spending growth in particular.

Overall global IT spending is likely to touch $3.7 trillion in 2013, up 4.2 percent from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion.

Much of this spending increase is the result from projected gains in the value of foreign currencies versus the dollar. When measured in constant dollars, 2013 spending growth is forecast to be 3.9 percent.

Uncertainties surrounding prospects for an upturn in global economic growth are the major retardants to IT growth.

“This uncertainty has caused the pessimistic business and consumer sentiment throughout the world. However, much of this uncertainty is nearing resolution, and as it does, we look for accelerated spending growth in 2013 compared to 2012,” said Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner.

Enterprise software spending is forecast to reach $296 billion in 2013, up 6.4 percent from 2012. This segment will be driven by key markets such as security, storage management and customer relationship management.

Beginning in 2014, markets aligned to big data and other information management initiatives, such as enterprise content management, data integration tools, and data quality tools will begin to see increased levels of investment.

Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (billions of U.S. Dollars)

	2012 Spending	2012 Growth	2013 Spending	2013 Growth	2014 Spending	2014 Growth
Devices	627	2.9%	666	6.3%	694	4.2%
Data Center Systems	141	2.3%	147	4.5%	154	4.2%
Enterprise Software	278	3.3%	296	6.4%	316	6.8%
IT Services	881	1.8%	927	5.2%	974	5.1%
Telecom Services	1,661	-0.1%	1,701	2.4%	1,742	2.4%
Overall IT	3,588	1.2%	3,737	4.2%	3,881	3.8%

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

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