IT spending to top $2.8 trillion by 2019, says IDC
IT spending by enterprises, government, SMBs and others is forecast to grow to more than $2.8 trillion in 2019, according to a report from IDC.
The research firm's latest figures represent an increase from $2.46 trillion in 2015.
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The largest IT spenders will come from the discrete manufacturing, banking, and telecom verticals with each delivering more than 8 percent of all spending through 2019.
The fastest growing vertical industry over the 2015-2019 forecast period will be healthcare, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 5.5 percent.
Banking and insurance are tied for second with the media and resource industries for the industries, each with a five-year growth rate of 4.6 percent.
In terms of size, over 40 percent of IT spending will come from enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. The SMB category will account for roughly one quarter of all IT spending.
The majority of IT spending will go toward software, according to the report. Enterprise resource management and operations & manufacturing applications are set to take in the greatest share of software spending. Network software, collaborative applications, analytics delivery applications will be the fastest growing.
Hardware is expected to remain the largest market segment overall, with roughly 40 percent of IT expenditures going to devices, infrastructure, and telecom hardware such as smartphones. And despite lackluster sales overall, PCs will remain an active category of IT spending, IDC says.
IDC's forecast is considerably muted compared to a similar report from research firm Gartner, which predicts worldwide IT spending to total $3.54 trillion in 2016.
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