Industry analysts Gartner are predicting that worldwide IT spending is on pace to total €2.3 trillion ($3.2 trillion) in 2009, a 6% decline from 2008 spending of €2.4 trillion ($3.4 trillion).
All four major segments of IT – hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications – are predicted to experience a decline in revenue, something that did not happen in the 2001 downturn.
Continued weak IT spending because of the economic situation combined with the effect of exchange rate movements has resulted in Gartner lowering its 2009 forecast from its earlier Q1 projection. In March of this year, Gartner predicted worldwide IT spending would decline 3.8% cent.
"While the global economic downturn shows signs of easing, this year IT budgets are still being cut and consumers will need a lot more persuading before they can feel confident enough to loosen their purse strings," said Richard Gordon, research vice president and head of global forecasting at Gartner.
"The forecast decline in spending growth for the hardware and software segments in 2009 has almost stabilised, and only minor downward revisions have been made to these forecasts this quarter," Mr Gordon said.
"However, the full impact of the global recession on the IT services and telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these areas has been further reduced significantly.”
Falls are expected to be particularly sharp in the hardware and software segments.
The computing hardware segment will experience the steepest decline in 2009, with spending projected to decline 16.3%. The software segment will show the smallest decrease in 2009, with spending forecast to drop 1.6%.
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