IDC Forecasts Slowing IT Spending Throughout 2008
A quarter into 2008, market researchers at IDC say that worldwide, IT spending
-- like the broader economy -- is on track for a slow year.
In a research
press release Tuesday based on IDC's "Worldwide Black Book Q1,"
the Framingham, Mass.-based market research firm predicted that worldwide IT
spending will increase 5.7 percent this year, compared with 7.2 percent last
year.
The main cause of the drag appears to be the United States, where last year's
6 percent growth is expected to dip down to about 4 percent this year. Breaking
the U.S. forecasts into sectors, IDC expects hardware spending to grow by 2
percent, software spending to grow by 7 percent and IT services spending to
grow by 5 percent.
So there you have it -- a broad set of revenue targets against which you can
benchmark your sales numbers.
In addition to the figures, Stephen Minton, IDC's vice president of worldwide
IT markets, clearly sketched out the order in which the IT shoes drop in an
IT spending slowdown.
"In every previous IT recession, the first sign of weakness has shown
up in a softening of PC shipments," Minton explained in a statement. "This
has then transmitted to other hardware sectors within one quarter, to software
license sales within half a year, and to the IT services sector if the recession
persists for more than three quarters."
Minton suggested only that the industry "could" be at the beginning
of an IT spending slowdown.
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 13, 2008