Smartphones, tablets engines of growth in IT spending in 2014

Smartphones and tablets will continue to drive global information-technology spending as it speeds up in 2014 after a slowdown in 2013, according to forecasts in the latest quarterly “Worldwide Black Book” of the International Data Corp., a unit of the privately held International Data Group.

Assuming a constant currency, IDC described global IT spending as growing 5 percent last year and predicted it will rise 4 percent, to $2.04 trillion, this year and more than 5 percent next year, to $2.14 trillion. And the market-research company reported almost one-half of the growth this year is attributable to smartphone and tablet shipments.

“The overall industry has been propped up by continued strength in mobile devices, especially smartphones, but the slowdown in emerging markets was another headwind for infrastructure-focused tech firms on top of government sequestration in the U.S. and continued sluggish growth in Europe,” said Stephen Minton, vice president in IDC’s Global Technology & Industry Research Organization.

Despite the U.S. government’s misadventures in Washington, IT spending this year is anticipated to grow a full percentage point more in this country than in the world as a whole, with IDC expecting it to rise 5 percent (only 3 percent without mobile phones). However, personal-computer spending is likely to continue to be constrained because of cannibalization by tablets at lower price points.

The U.S. market has held up pretty well, all things considered,” Minton said. “The main headwind, aside from uncertainty over the next round of political dogfighting, is cannibalization as tablets continue to eat into PC sales and as the cloud eats into traditional IT services revenues. This cannibalization trend is seen across all geographies, and will be a constraint on IT spending even while the macroeconomic environment improves.

Minton and Natasha Menon, a research analyst, will be discussing the new “Worldwide Black Book” forecasts on a “State of the Market: IT Spending Review and Forecast Q3 2013” webcast Thursday beginning at noon EST. Click here for details and registration information.

The Framingham, Mass.-based IDC’s “Worldwide Black Book” provides IT spending forecasts in 54 countries around the world. These forecasts focus on 25 individual market segments across hardware, software, IT services and telecom services for countries in regions including North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.