After a difficult year in which IT spending fell globally, Gartner (opens in a new tab) published new forecasts, according to which the situation will return to growth in 2023.
The analytics firm said global IT spending in 2022 fell slightly from the previous year, reporting an overall decline of 0.2% in the sector.
This decline was largely due to a 10.6% drop in hardware spending, but data center spending increased by a staggering 12.0%, reflecting our growing demand for digital storage.
IT spending 2023
However, as consumers are expected to face a difficult economic situation in the coming year, Gartner believes that businesses will continue to spend big on IT.
Software and IT services are expected to see the biggest growth in IT spending this year, with communications services and data center systems only seeing a few positives.
In fact, the only segment that Gartner expects to shrink is devices (down 5.1%), which may have already been refreshed when companies turned to hybrid work routine activities in recent years, leading to an overall expectation that global IT spending will increase by 2.4% in 2023.
That said, the company expected 2023 growth to be around 5.1% last October, indicating that the enduring effects of ongoing global events are still taking their toll on companies around the world.
Gartner Senior Vice President John-David Lovelock said, “The turbulent economy has changed the context of business decisions and can cause CIOs to become more indecisive, delay decisions or change priorities.”
Looking ahead to the year ahead, it is possible that some companies that are guilty of overinvestment in growth during the pandemic will now need to more carefully consider their options for reducing resources, while many workers are looking for positions that can keep up with the demand for higher wages.