Gartner forecasts global IT spending to exceed $4 trillion in 2022

Global IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.5% from 2021, according to a forecast by Gartner. 

Enterprise software is expected to clock the highest growth in 2022 at 11.5%, driven by infrastructure software spending continuing to outpace expenditures on application software.   

In 2021, global spending on IT devices rose by 15.1% as compared to 2020 owing to the work from home scenario, but Gartner expects IT devices to still grow by 2.3% in 2022, owing to enterprises upgrading devices and investing in new devices to adapt to a hybrid work scenario.

“Enterprises will increasingly build new technologies and software, rather than buy and implement them, leading to overall slower spending levels in 2022 compared to 2021,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. 

But digital spending will still be a top priority, owing to companies continuing to focus spending on making their infrastructure secure and adapting to complete hybrid work settings, says Lovelock.  

Comparing numbers since the pandemic set in, enterprise software is expected to grow from $529,028 million in 2020, to $669,819 million in 2022, while devices are expected to grow from $696,990 in 2020 to $820,756 in 2022.

“In 2022, CIOs need to reconfigure how work is done by embracing business composability and the technologies that accommodate asynchronous workflows,” said Lovelock.   

The IT spending forecast by Gartner takes in analysis of sales of vendors across IT products and services.  

Gartner said it utilises primary research techniques, and secondary research sources to build its database and create forecasts.