Impact of COVID-19 and Transformative Technologies on ICT Spending Patterns, Global, 2017–2026

Global ICT spending reached $2.8 trillion in 2019, registering 3.6% YoY growth. While ICT spending is currently prioritized towards business continuity and solutions to better cope with the pandemic and a post-pandemic business environment, Frost and Sullivan predicts a shift in IT spending patterns, which will lean more towards digital and emerging technologies, including the Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big-data analytics, intelligent automation, and blockchain. In 2020, overall enterprise ICT spending is expected to decline as organizations deal with COVID-19 issues, struggle to implement business continuity plans, and reduce capital spending. Businesses globally delayed their planned IT investments in cutting-edge technologies and prioritized expenditures in solutions to meet their current needs. However, as the economy begins to recover in mid to late 2021, companies are expected to invest in transformative technologies to future-proof against new emergencies. Businesses are looking at building resilience. For example, through the pandemic, retailers found they were ill-equipped to deal with the sudden switch from in-store to online purchases when much of retail shopping moved online. Their focus now is to ensure that e-commerce platforms deployed can manage to scale. Expect to see greater spending in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and cloud vendor spending on servers and storage. Emerging use-cases for edge compute, and robotic automation in manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and hospitality will also create a demand for on-premises hardware. Industries covered include education, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, wholesale, IT and communications, travel, transportation, and utilities. Regions include the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific.