KUALA LUMPUR: Gartner Inc sees spending on technology products and services in Malaysia climbing 5.7% to RM65.16bil in 2018, mirroring the global IT trends.
It said on Wednesday, this was up 5.7% from the RM61.62bil last year while it expects spending to rise to RM68.46bil in 2019.
Gartner said in 2017, sales of devices were RM11.31bil; data centre systems RM2.23bil; software RM4.69; IT services RM11.42bil while communications services accounted for the large chunk at RM31.96bil.
For 2018, of the RM65.16bil spending, devices will account for RM12.43bil; data centre systems RM2.21bil; software RM5.21bil, IT services RM12.13bil and communications services RM33.18bil.
As for 2019, of the estimated spending of RM68.46bil, Gartner expects devices to account for RM13.36bil; data centre systems RM2.19bil; software RM5.78bil; IT services RM12.85bil and communication services at RM34.16bil.
On the global scale, IT spending is projected to total US$3.7 trillion in 2018, an increase of 4.5% from 2017, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.
John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner said global IT spending growth began to turn around in 2017, with continued growth expected over the next few years.
“However, uncertainty looms as organisations consider the potential impacts of Brexit, currency fluctuations, and a possible global recession,” he said.
"Despite this uncertainty, businesses will continue to invest in IT as they anticipate revenue growth, but their spending patterns will shift.
“Projects in digital business, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and progression from big data to algorithms to machine learning to artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be main drivers of growth," said Lovelock.
Gartner sees enterprise software continues to show strong growth, with worldwide software spending projected to grow 9.5% in 2018, and it will grow another 8.4% in 2019 to US$421bil.
Underpinning the growth are expectations that organisations will increase spending on enterprise application software in 2018, with more of the budget shifting to software as a service (SaaS).
The growing availability of SaaS-based solutions is encouraging new adoption and spending across many subcategories, such as financial management systems (FMS), human capital management (HCM) and analytic applications.
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