Driven largely by spending on enterprise software and IT services, Gartner is projecting worldwide IT spending to increase by 5.5% and hit $4.5 trillion in 2022.
That follows the IT research giant’s forecast of 9.5% growth this year, which was driven by large increases in spending across the board.
Gartner announced its IT spending forecast this week during its virtual IT Symposium/Xpo 2021, a four-day virtual event that features insights on current IT trends from the organization’s researchers, experts and technology companies.
According to Gartner, enterprise software will have the highest growth in 2022 at 11.5%, which the organization says is driven by infrastructure software spending, which is outpacing application software spending.
Download our IT Pro guide on budgeting
Meanwhile, spending on devices is expected to tick up 2.3% in 2022, after increasing 15.1% in 2021 due to the pandemic and the demand for remote work technologies. The increase next year is driven by enterprises that upgrade devices and/or invest in multiple devices to thrive in a hybrid work setting, according to Gartner.
Elsewhere, spending will grow 5.8% in 8.6% in IT services, 5.8% in data center services, and 2.1% in communication services.
John David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement that enterprises will increasingly build new technologies and software rather than buy and implement them, which will lead to overall slower spending levels in 2022 compared to 2021.
“However, digital tech initiatives remain a top strategic business priority for companies as they continue to reinvent the future of work, focusing spending on making their infrastructure bulletproof and accommodating increasingly complex hybrid work for employees going into 2022,” he said.
If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!
Leave a Reply