Global Tech Spending Forecasts for 2018: Software’s A Strong Category

January 23, 2018

This article is included in these additional categories:

Analytics, Automated & MarTech | Customer-Centric | Industries | Technology

Expect growth in the global technology market (excluding consumer tech) to be in the range of 4-5% this year, according to forecasts issued by Forrester and Gartner. For its part, Forrester expects that business and government spending on technology goods, software and services will increase by 5.1% this year and 4.7% in 2019 in constant currency terms.

Forrester’s forecast calls for software purchases to grow by 7.3% in constant currencies (8.3% in US dollars) this year, and by more than 7% again next year.

The tech outsourcing category is also projected to see above-average growth rates this year, of about 6%, driven by cloud platform services spending increases in the 20% range.

Finally, Forrester also notes that business technologies focused on assisting companies in winning, serving and retaining customers will also see faster growth than back-office tech.

Separately, a new forecast from Gartner predicts that IT spending will increase by 4.5% year-over-year globally in 2018 to reach $3.7 trillion.

Gartner also sees the software market as a key growth driver. The firm forecasts spending on enterprise software to increase by 9.5% this year to $389 billion, up from 8.9% growth last year. Strong growth rates should carry over into 2019, when spending on enterprise software is expected to climb by 8.4% to $710 billion.

IT services spending is also projected to rise by an above-average rate, of 5.5%, just shy of the mark set by device spending (5.6%). Next year, though, spending on devices will slow to a modest 0.9% increase, while spending on IT services should maintain a strong 4.6% growth rate.

With tech spending expected to increase this year and next, tech marketers will be busy pursuing IT professionals, who already say they field upwards of 20 sales pitches per week. Based on research from Spiceworks, marketers would be wise to include detailed information pricing information and product specs in their pitches, and make sure to deliver top-notch post-purchase support to engender brand loyalty.

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