Worldwide IT spending in 2020 is predicted to decline by 8% from 2019 to total $3.4 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.
The research and advisory company said all segments will experience a decline in 2020, with devices and data centre systems experiencing the largest drops in spending.
However, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spur remote working, sub segments such as public cloud services will be a bright spot in the forecast, growing 19% in 2020, said Gartner.
“CIOs have moved into emergency cost optimisation which means that investments will be minimised and prioritised on operations that keep the business running, which will be the top priority for most organisations through 2020,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner.
“Recovery will not follow previous patterns as the forces behind this recession will create both supply side and demand side shocks as the public health, social and commercial restrictions begin to lessen.”
Cloud-based telephony and messaging and cloud-based conferencing will also see high levels of spending growing 8.9% and 24.3%.
“In 2020, some longer-term cloud-based transformational projects may be put on hiatus, but the overall cloud spending levels Gartner was projecting for 2023 and 2024 will now be showing up as early as 2022,” added Lovelock.
“IT spending recovery will be slow through 2020, with the hardest hit industries, such as entertainment, air transport and heavy industry, taking over three years to come back to 2019 IT spending levels.
“Recovery requires a change in mindset for most organisations. There is no bouncing back. There needs to be a reset focused on moving forward.”
