The ravaging Covid-19 pandemic, which is forcing businesses and organizations across the world to prioritize their spending on technology and IT services has reduced spending on Information Technology in 2020.
According to data analysed by BuyShares, the spending on Information Technology nosedived by almost $210bn in 2020, representing a 5.5percent decrease year-over-year. BuyShares attributes this reduced spending to a situation, where many people decided to reset their budgets to finance only critical projects over initiatives aimed at transformation and growth.
The global IT spending was growing for four years in a row before the outbreak of Covid-19. According to Gartner data, companies and organizations worldwide spent over $3.3trillion on IT technology and services in 2015. In the next twelve months, this figure rose to almost $3.4trillion and continued growing. In 2018, global IT spending jumped to over $3.7trillion, nearly a 10percent jump in three years.
The increasing trend continued in 2019, with global spending on IT technology and services rising by 2.7percent year-over-year to over $3.8trillion. However, the COVID-19 crisis caused a significant cut, with the figure falling to around $3.6trilion in 2020.
Statistics show that global spending on devices like PCs, tablets, mobile phones, or printers is expected to witness the most significant drop in 2020, falling by 13.4percent YoY to around $616billion. IT services spending is forecast to hit $992billion, a 4.6percent drop in a year.
Businesses and organizations are expected to spend $459billion on enterprise software, 3.7percent less than in 2019. Data center systems follow with a 3.2percent decrease in spending to $208bn in 2020.