In the U.S., IT spending will grow 3.5% in 2019, Gartner added, emphasizing that growth is “despite the ongoing tariff war.” In China, by contrast, IT spending is expected to grow 0.1% in 2019. “Tariffs do not have a direct effect on IT spending yet,” Lovelock added. “Should tariffs extend to devices like PCs and mobile phones, we will likely see manufacturers switch supply routes to minimize costs and have their technology made outside of Chinas.”
In 2019, the device market will hurt the most, according to Gartner—down 5.3% from its $713-billion number in 2018. That market will grow modestly, at 1.2%, in 2020. Lovelock observed, “Similar to how consumers have reached a threshold for upgrading to new technology and applications, technology general managers and product managers should invest only in the next generation of products that will push them closer to becoming a true technology company.”
The rest of the world is catching up on cloud spending, which drives much IT-spending growth, Gartner added. “The U.S. is leading cloud adoption and accounts for over half of global spending on cloud,” the company said. “In some cases, countries that Gartner tracks lag one to seven years in cloud adoption rates.”
Lovelock added, “For perspective, the country directly behind the U.S. on cloud spending is the United Kingdom, which only spends 8% on public cloud services. An interesting outlier is China, which has the highest growth of cloud spending out of all countries. While China is closing the spending gap, it still will not reach U.S. levels by 2023.”
