IT spending in Thailand this year is projected to decline 9.3% or 649 billion baht, lower than the projection made in early year at 752 billion baht by which devices (PCs, tablets, smartphone and data center) will be top losing group, according to Gartner Inc.
Device market will see the largest drop (-18%), followed by data center (-17.9%), IT services (-6.7%), telecommunication services (-5.9%), and enterprise software (-3.6%).
The worldwide IT spending is projected to total US$3.4 trillion in 2020, a decline of 8% from 2019. The coronavirus pandemic and effects of the global economic recession are causing CIOs to prioritize spending on technology and services that are deemed “mission-critical” over initiatives aimed at growth or transformation.
All segments will experience a decline in 2020, with devices and data center systems experiencing the largest drops in spending. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spur remote working, sub segments such as public cloud services will be a bright spot in the forecast, growing 19% in 2020. Cloud-based telephony and messaging and cloud-based conferencing will also see high levels of spending growing 8.9% and 24.3%, respectively.
IT spending recovery will be slow through 2020, with the hardest hit industries, such as entertainment, air transport and heavy industry, taking over three years to come back to 2019 IT spending levels. Recovery requires a change in mindset for most organizations. There is no bouncing back. There needs to be a reset focused on moving forward.”
CIOs have moved into emergency cost optimization which means that investments will be minimized and prioritized on operations that keep the business running, which will be the top priority for most organizations through 2020, said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner.
“Recovery will not follow previous patterns as the forces behind this recession will create both supply side and demand side shocks as the public health, social and commercial restrictions begin to lessen.”
