Global Spend on IT Devices to Plunge by $108 Billion

The global spend on IT devices is forecast to plunge by $108bn year-on-year, falling to $590bn in 2020, according to data gathered by LearnBonds.

This major decrease can be attributed to the COVID-19 outbreak which has caused IT spend to slip by 8% – thousands of companies are cutting their technology and service budgets and financing only essential IT costs. And 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.

Revenue Crashes 15.5% in 2020

In 2012, consumers worldwide spent $676bn on IT devices, including PCs, ultramobiles, tablets, mobile phones and printers – according to Statista and Gartner data. By the end of 2016, this value dropped to $630bn. Over the next two years, global spending on IT devices rose to $712bn, a six-year high.

Statistics show that by the end of 2019, this value slightly decreased to $698bn. 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 $590bn in 2020, down 15.5% in a year.

VP of data firm Gartner, John-David Lovelock says “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.”

Computing Revenue to Tumble by $14.3bn This Year

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 $278.9bn in revenue last year. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, this value is expected to slump to $264.6bn in 2020, a $14.3bn drop in a year.

As the largest revenue stream of the entire market, laptops and tablets sales are forecast to decline by 9.7% year-on-year, falling from $171.6bn in 2019 to $161.9bn in 2020. Desktop PCs sales revenue is forecast to plunge by $1.6bn year-on-year, while storage unit revenue is forecast to fall by $1.2bn in 2020.

Statistics indicate that consumers worldwide are expected to reduce their spending on PC monitors and projectors by more than $1bn this year. Keyboards and printers follow with $200m, and $500m drop in revenue, respectively.