Western Europe stands out against muted global IT spend

Western Europe stands out against muted global IT spend
Gartner has lowered its expectations for global IT spending to $3.7 trillion (€0.8 trillion) after fluctuations in US dollar exchange rates.

The figure, that encompasses hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications, still represents a 2% increase from 2012 spending. 

"Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth," said Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner. 

"Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered. However, Western Europe's constant-currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook." 

Spending on devices is also dragging the forecast down with the initially forecast 7.9% growth slashed to 2.8%.

Although sales of PCs and laptops are declining, the outlook for tablet revenue for 2013 is for growth of 38.9%, while mobile phone revenue is projected to increase 9.3 percent this year. 

Enterprise software spending is on pace to grow 6.4% in 2013 with telecom services spending forecast to grow 0.9%.