New York: Global spending on information technology will increase 5.3 per cent to $3.4 trillion (Dh12.48 trillion) this year, led by individual and household purchases, according to Gartner.
In constant currency, the growth will be 1.6 per cent, the market research firm said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Mobile personal computers will drive hardware spending, which is predicted to climb to $353 billion, up 5.7 per cent from last year, Gartner said.
Information technology companies are looking to raise revenue after last year's global economic slump prompted consumers and businesses to cut back on electronics. Apple sold more than 450,000 of its iPad tablet computers in the first week after its US launch this month, marking new popularity for this hardware category.
Cloud computing
Business hardware spending is projected to remain below its 2008 levels through 2014, Gartner said. Spending on computer servers is expected to focus on low-end devices in the short term, and could be curtailed in the long term by cloud computing, whereby companies host data on the internet rather than their own physical servers, Gartner said.
