Over the past years, companies’ spending on IT infrastructure has usually consistently grown, the pandemic period was no exception, but the year 2022 ended this trend, demonstrating a decrease in global industry costs by 0.2% to $4.38 trillion. Gartner initially expected these costs to rise by 0.8%, and now they have to cut their forecast for the current year as well.
Image Source: Microsoft
In October, according to The Wall Street Journal, Gartner analysts were counting on almost twice the growth in spending in the global IT industry in 2023, but now they have reduced the forecast to 2.4% growth. The segment of expenses for the purchase of PCs and other devices for business needs suffered the most. If last year the core costs of corporations decreased by more than 10%, then this year they should decrease by another 5.1% to $ 685 billion. Except for cases of emergency replacement, the service life of mobile equipment is increasing, according to experts.
Spending on software and services remains stable, and together they will generate about $2.16 billion in industry spending this year. $264 billion will be spent directly on consulting services this year, up 6.7% from a year earlier. At the same time, corporate representatives recognize that in the face of macroeconomic difficulties, they will have to focus spending on the most important areas.
Rising spending on services speaks to a continuing skills shortage in the information technology industry, as companies are more likely to turn to contractors rather than doing the work with full-time staff. In the US, the unemployment rate in the IT sector in December did not exceed 1.8% against 3.5% in the country’s economy as a whole. At the same time, the growth of salaries in this area is forcing some employers to limit the hiring of specialized personnel.
IBM predicts that up to 78% of the world’s leading companies plan to continue investing in technology next year. Priority areas remain cybersecurity, artificial intelligence systems and cloud computing systems.
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