Dive Brief:
- Last year saw the biggest ever one-year fall in worldwide IT spending, according to research firm Gartner. Purchasing fell in software, devices and services.
- IT spending fell almost 6% globally, Gartner said. Russia, Japan and Brazil saw the biggest slowdowns.
- Despite the global downturn, U.S. IT spending was up 3.1%.
Dive Insight:
Gartner predicts only a slight increase for global IT spending in 2016, with just a 0.6% increase over 2015.
The strong U.S. dollar was partially to blame for the global decrease in spending as it helped increase the cost of exports by about 20%, according to Gartner.
In 2015, U.S. IT spending reached $1.14 trillion and is forecasted to increase 1.2% in 2016, according to Gartner.
“We’re just in this anemic growth period," said John-David Lovelock, a research vice president at Gartner, referring to the global outlook.
The shift to more cloud-based SaaS products also appears to be affecting the numbers, because companies no longer need to purchase pricey, multi-year software licenses. At the same time, increased use of cloud technology also pushed data systems spending up, making it the only area to see spending improvement in 2015.
