Coronavirus outbreak caused a global IT spending to slip 8% this year, with thousands of companies cutting their technology and service budgets and financing only essential IT costs.
Although the entire sector is forecast to shrink, IT devices and data centre systems are set to witness the most significant drop in consumer spending this year. The global spending on IT devices is forecast to plunge by $108 billion (€96 billion) year-on-year, falling to $590 billion (€524 billion) in 2020, according to data gathered by LearnBonds.
In 2012, consumers worldwide spent $676 billion (€600 billion) on IT devices, including PCs, ultramobiles, tablets, mobile phones, and printers, revealed Statista and Gartner data. By the end of 2016, this value dropped to $630 billion (€559 billion). Over the next two years, global spending on IT devices rose to $712 billion (€632 billion), a six-year high.
Statistics show that by the end of 2019, this value slightly decreased to $698 billion (€620 billion). However, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an IT industry recession, with even the largest tech companies like America’s IBM and HP, or China’s Lenovo, witnessing falling sales and tumbling stock prices. The Gartner data revealed that global consumer spending on IT devices is expected to plummet to $590 billion (€524 billion) in 2020, down 15.5% in a year.
Vice President of data firm Gartner, John-David Lovelock, said: “IT spending recovery will be slow through 2020, with the hardest hit industries, such as entertainment, air transport and heavy industry, taking over three years to come back to 2019 IT spending levels.”
Besides a significant decrease in the IT device consumer spending, statistics forecast a substantial fall in global computing industry revenue in 2020. The market, which includes retail sales of laptops, tablets, desktop PCs, storage units, PC monitors, and keyboards, hit $278.9 billion (€247.8 billion) in revenue last year. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, this value is expected to slump to $264.6 billion (€235.1 billion) in 2020, a $14.3 billion (€12.7 billion) drop in a year.
As the largest revenue stream of the entire market, laptops and tablets sales is forecast to decline by 9.7% year-on-year, falling from $171.6 billion (€152.4 billion) in 2019 to $161.9 billion (€143.9 billion) in 2020. Desktop PCs sales revenue is forecast to plunge by $1.6 billion (€1.4 billion) year-on-year, while storage unit revenue is forecast to fall by $1.2 billion (€1.06 billion) in 2020.
Statistics indicate that consumers worldwide are expected to reduce their spending on PC monitors and projectors by more than $1 billion (€0.88 billion) this year. Keyboards and printers follow with $200 million (€177 million), and $500 million (€444 million) drop in revenue, respectively.
