While the global economic outlook continues to dampen growth, analyst firm IDC Corp. predicts pent-up need for technology refresh and replacement will lead to enterprise IT spending growth in 2013.
IDC is predicting total IT spending on hardware, software, and IT services across all 15 enterprise industries will grow by six per cent in 2013, growing the overall market to US$474 billion. The outlook remains cloudy in Europe and the U.S., but IDC expects the U.S. outlook to stabilize in the second half of the year.
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“Global uncertainty has subdued the willingness of firms to expand their IT budgets,” said Ted Dangson, vice-president in IDC’s global technology and industry research organization. “Yet we’ve seen continued investments by companies as they prioritize the replacement of outdated technology, and pursue strategic IT initiatives focused on big data and analytics, cloud computing, and mobility.”
Specific industries that IDC expects to grow at above-average rates include healthcare, which is forecast to grow by more than eight per cent due in part to the need to process and analyze increasing volumes of data from new clinical systems such as EHR. The professional services industry is also expected to grow more than eight per cent.