Global IT Spending Numbers- Smartphones grow by 26.8%, Hardware Spend Down 0.5%

The global IT spendings in 2011 stood at $1695 whereas it is forecasted to be at $1781 in 2012. A GigaOm report showed a distribution of these spendings across the main categories. While cloud, mobility, social, and analytics have been driving demand for IT products and services in 2012, the worldwide IT spending picture has become dimmer as the year has progressed.

Smartphones: Apple reported 22 percent iPhone and 52 percent iPad revenue growth year over year, respectively, in its latest earnings report. Android continues to grow, and Windows 8 phones and tablets should begin shipping in earnest in 2013. Tablets are largely incremental buys in the consumer space at this time. We’re expecting a crossover of apps with laptops and Ultrabooks, but that won’t begin in earnest until 2013. Enterprises will become a more important driver of smartphone growth in 2013.

Servers: Server revenues will continue to shrink in 2012. Hard disk drive (HDD) availability in the first half of the year dampened demand somewhat, as has anticipation of product refresh cycles coming later in 2012 with a revenue impact in 2013. Virtualization is an important contributor to the server revenue decline, enabling data centers to get more processing from fewer systems — often 10 virtual machines running on a single box. This reduces demand for lower-price band offerings as data centers gravitate toward larger systems that can handle more virtual machines (VMs).

The International data corporation also came out with a report which said that global IT spending will go up around 6%. China is expected to see 14 % growth, and other emerging markets such as India and Brazil will see similar increases. Japan's rise in spending is due to be just two percent, IDC said. The year has been rough for IT vendors but numbers aren't that gloomy. The situation is reasonably cheerful.