IT spending will see only 1.1% growth in 2019, forecasts Gartner

Gartner has adjusted its 2019 global IT spending growth forecast to 1.1%, down from the 3.2% the research firm predicted back in January.

Citing economic factors such as a stronger US dollar, analysts now estimate that total IT spending will amount to 3.79 trillion - roughly the same as in 2018.

"Currency headwinds fuelled by the strengthening U.S. dollar have caused us to revise our 2019 IT spending forecast down from the previous quarter," said John-David Lovelock, Gartner research vice president. "Through the remainder of 2019, the U.S. dollar is expected to trend stronger, while enduring tremendous volatility due to uncertain economic and political environments and trade wars."

Despite the slight overall growth, Garter said the data centre systems segment will suffer the largest decline of 2.8%, as expected component cost adjustments continue to drive down average selling prices (ASPs) in the server market.

The ongoing enterprise shift from traditional, non-cloud to cloud-based setups, however, will continue to fuel enterprise software growth. In 2019, analysts predict the market to hit $427 billion, marking a 7.1% increase over 2018's total of $399 billion.

While application software has so far seen the largest cloud shift, Gartner said it expects increased growth for the infrastructure software segment in the near-term particularly in integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and application platform as a service (aPaaS).

"Disruptive emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), will reshape business models as well as the economics of public and private sector enterprises. AI is having a major effect on IT spending, although its role is often misunderstood," Lovelock commented.

"AI is not a product, it is really a set of techniques or a computer engineering discipline. As such, AI being embedded in many existing products and services, as well as being central to new development efforts in every industry. Gartner's AI business value forecast predicts that organisations will receive $1.9 trillion worth of benefit from the use of AI this year alone."