Australian IT spending set to grow 2.7% in 2017

IT spending in Australia is on pace to reach more than $85 billion this year, up 2.7% from 2016, according to Gartner’s latest forecast.

IT services will remain the biggest category of tech spending, reaching $30.61 billion in 2017 and $31.29 billion in 2018, Gartner said. Communications services will follow closely behind, reaching $29.53 billion this year and growing to $29.97 billion in 2018.

But spending on devices is expected to decline over the next two years, falling nearly 2% to $10.52 billion this year and a further 2.5% in 2018 to $10.26 billion.

Software spending will meanwhile grow a strong 10% this year to $11.69 billion, and climb to $12.93 billion next year, Gartner predicts. Data centre systems sales will fluctuate from $2.68 billion last year to $2.7 billion in 2017 and back to $2.65 billion in 2018.

In New Zealand, total IT spending is projected to reach NZ$11.4 billion ($10.84 billion) in 2017, up 2.3% from last year.

Globally, IT spending is also set to grow 2.7% from 2016 to US$3.5 trillion ($4.68 trillion), but Gartner has shaved its projection down from 3% growth due to the wider macroeconomic environment.

“2017 was poised to be a rebound year in IT spending. Some major trends have converged, including cloud, blockchain, digital business and artificial intelligence. Normally, this would have pushed IT spending much higher than 2.7% growth,” Gartner Research VP John-David Lovelock said.

“However, some of the political uncertainty in global markets has fostered a wait-and-see approach, causing many enterprises to forestall IT investments.”

Image courtesy of 401(K) 2012 under CC

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