US spending on IT goods and services is forecast to start growing again in Q4 2009, and European spending on IT goods and services is expected to start growing again in Q1 2010, according to the US forecasting house Forrester Research.
"Forrester still expects growth in U.S. IT investment to resume in fourth-quarter 2009, and 2010 is expected to bring a revival of IT buying in other markets as well," says Forrester.
"While Q1 2009 saw a scary drop in purchases in the US tech market, ironically that is good news for the long run and we expect to see a stronger rebound sooner," says Andrew Bartels Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst, "the big drops are not precursors to further declines; rather, we think they are evidence of a temporary pause in US tech purchases, which we expect to start recovering in Q4 as businesses realize that they overreacted in the first quarter. We also expect that tech markets in Europe and Asia will start to recover in the first half of 2010."
Forrester uses several metrics to determine the health and size of the US IT market quarterly and of the global IT market. The data in the new report focuses on IT purchasing - how much computer and communications equipment, software, IT consulting and integration services, and IT outsourcing that businesses and governments buy from technology vendors.
See also: Mannerisms -
Bridge Of DiesSign up for the weekly Mannerisms blog newsletter, delivered on Tuesdays.
Looking at the 2009 global IT spending outlook by sector, Forrester anticipates lower investment than previously expected across all categories. Forrester projects purchases of computer equipment to be down by 13.5%, communications equipment buying to drop by 12.4%, software spending to decline by 8.2%, and purchases of IT consulting and outsourcing services to be 8.6% lower.
Global purchases of IT goods and services by businesses and governments in 2009 are projected to decline by 10.6% compared with the 3% decrease projected at the beginning of the year by Forrester. In the US, the company projects a 5.1% decline, compared with the 3.1% decrease previously forecast.