Australian IT spending to grow 3% in 2019

IT spending in Australia is on track to grow 3% this year to nearly $94 billion, as growth in software and services counteracts declines in the hardware segment, according to Gartner.

The research firm's latest quarterly IT spending forecast predicts that this growth trajectory will be sustained through to 2022, by which time spending is set to reach $105.7 billion.

Spending on software will increase 10% this year to $16.05 billion, while IT services — the largest category of the market — will see a 4.4% bump to $34.4 billion and communications services spending is set to grow 1.3% to $28.38 billion.

But longer device refresh cycles, falling prices in the server market and the ongoing shift away from internal ICT infrastructure and towards cloud-delivered services will take their toll on hardware spending in Australia, Gartner said.

The research firm expects spending on devices to fall 3.4% to $12.02 billion, and spending on data centre systems to fall 2.7% to $3.08 billion.

Gartner expects spending on devices to reach a low point of $11.95 billion in 2020, before bouncing back to $12.12 billion by 2022. But the data centre systems segment will remain relatively flat, reaching $3.05 billion by this time.

Garner meanwhile predicts that the New Zealand market will grow 2.2% in 2019 to NZ$13.7 billion ($12.82 billion), and near $15.2 billion in 2022.

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