Analysts to Discuss Latest IT Spending Outlook During Gartner Webinar on 14 April 2015
Worldwide IT spending is set to shrink to $3.66 trillion in 2015, a 1.3% decrease from 2014, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. (see Table 1). Gartner said that the rising dollar is chiefly responsible for the slowdown."We forecast U.S.-dollar-valued worldwide IT spending in 2015 to shrink by 1.3%, down from 2.4% growth forecast in last quarter's update," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. "However, this is not a crash, even if it looks like one. The recent rapid rise in the value of the U.S. dollar against most currencies has put a currency shock into the global IT market. Taking out the impact of exchange rate movements, the corresponding constant-currency growth figure is 3.1%, only off 0.6% from last quarter's update. Such are the illusions that large swings in the value of the dollar versus other currencies can create."
"However, this illusion masks a bigger issue that has real implications. Every product or service that has a U.S. dollar-based component must have those costs covered at the lower exchange rate. The simple implication is that there will be price rises. However, there are many other market forces at work protecting U.S. dollar profits will require a nuanced and multifaceted approach involving pricing, partners and product management," said Mr. Lovelock.
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.