Smartphone boom drives up Gartner spending forecast

Analyst hoists prediction for worldwide spending on devices in 2013

A surge in spending on premium mobile phones has driven Gartner to increase its predicted annual growth for the worldwide devices market this year from 6.3 per cent to 7.9 per cent.

By the end of 2013, Gartner expects the worldwide devices market – which includes PCs, tablets, mobile phones, tablets and printers – to reach $718bn (£474bn), up 7.9 from 2012.

The boom in mobile spending is set to be so high that it will offset both the flat sales on PCs and a decline in printer spending, the analyst said in its Worldwide IT Spending Forecast 1Q13 Update.

John Lovelock, Garther's research vice president, said the move to mobile is just one of many trends affecting IT spending.

"Consumers and enterprises will continue to purchase a mix of IT products and services; nothing is going away completely," he said.

"However, the ratio of this mix is changing dramatically and there are clear winners and losers over the next three to five years. We see more of a transition from PCs to mobile phones, from servers to storage, from licensed software to cloud, or the shift in voice and data connections from fixed to mobile."

The devices market is expected to be the segment with the highest spend in Gartner's whole forecast, which also looks into the amount spent on datacentre systems, enterprise software, IT services and telecoms services.

Gartner reckons each of the sectors will experience spending growth this year, with datacentre systems sales set to jump 3.7 per cent to $146bn – a forecast which was downgraded by 0.7 per cent compared to the previous prediction.

The analyst claims the drop was down to spending cuts on external storage and the "economically troubled" EMEA region.

Spending across IT services and global telecoms services are set to remain flat due to what Gartner describes as a combination of buyer hesitation and increasing cost pressures.

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.8tn in 2013, up 4.1 per cent annually, according to the firm, which claims that Cyprus' recent debt burden has cancelled out the US narrowly averting the fiscal cliff.

Despite the mixed bag for the economy, Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner, said IT spending will not be stunted.

"The fragile business and consumer sentiment throughout much of the world continues. However, the new shocks are expected to be short lived, and while they may cause some pauses in discretionary spending along the way, strategic IT initiatives will continue," he added.