The slower outlook for 2015 is largely attributed to the rising U.S. dollar as well as a modest reduction in growth expectations for devices, IT services and telecom services
Worldwide IT spending is on pace to total $3.8 trillion in 2015, a 2.4 percent increase from 2014; however, this growth rate is down from earlier projections of 3.9 percent, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. The slower outlook for 2015 is largely attributed to the rising U.S. dollar as well as a modest reduction in growth expectations for devices, IT services and telecom services.
“The change in forecast is less dramatic than it might at first seem. The rising U.S. dollar is chiefly responsible for the change — in constant currency terms the downward revision is only 0.1 percent,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “Stripping out the impact of exchange rate movements, the corresponding constant-currency growth figure is 3.7 percent, which compares with 3.8 percent in the previous quarter’s forecast.”
The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.
The U.S. dollar spending growth rate on devices (including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones, tablets and printers) for 2015 was decreased by 1.3 percentage points to 5.1 percent. The smartphone market is becoming polarized between the high- and low-end market price points. On one hand, growth in premium phones with an average selling price of $478 in 2014 was dominated by iOS. At the other end of the spectrum, growth in Android and other open OS phones is in the basic phone segment, where in 2014 the average phone cost less than $100. As a result, the market opportunity is becoming increasingly limited for midrange smartphones.
