LONDON: IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2018 -- an increase of 4.9 per cent from an estimated spending of $974 billion in 2017 -- market research firm Gartner said on Wednesday.
"The UK has EMEA's largest IT market and its decline of 3.1 per cent in 2017 impacts the forecast heavily," said John-David Lovelock, Research Vice President, Gartner, in a statement.
"Weak sterling and political uncertainty since Brexit are reducing UK IT spending in 2017, while other major IT markets in EMEA grew steadily," Lovelock added.
In 2017, however, all categories of IT spending in EMEA underperformed global averages while currency effects played a big part in the weakness in 2017 and will also contribute to the strength forecast in 2018, the market research firm noted.
"In 2017, we're seeing a pause in EMEA enterprise spending due to the switch to as-a-service offerings gaining momentum," said Lovelock.
All categories of enterprise IT spending will return to growth in 2018, but only IT services and software will grow strongly at 4 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively.
Enterprise spending on devices and communications services continues to fall behind in 2018, growing at 2 per cent or lower, thus failing to recoup the losses of 2017.