Global IT spending in 2006 is forecast to increase by 6.3%

The cost of the global IT (IT) industry will increase by 6.3% this year with the main source of funding going into the software sector. However, this figure is still lower than last year. The figure for 2005 is 6.9%.

Global market research firm IDC said the total cost for the global IT industry in 2005 reached $ 1,000 billion. This number will increase by another 100 billion USD this year.

Stephen Minton, IDC's vice president of global IT market research, said in 2005 the hardware sector cost increased by 9%. This is the fastest growth rate of this sector since the Y2K event.

However, this year, the hardware sector may not be able to maintain that growth because the demand for hardware and infrastructure upgrades is no longer as high as in previous years.

Predicting the hardware sector this year only achieved a growth rate of 6%. In contrast, the software sector cost will increase by 7% this year.

In 2004, the IT industry cost increased only 5%, Minton said. And the forecast for 2006 is relatively positive.

' It can be said that the prediction for the IT industry is brighter than most other industries. However, I think the IT industry can hardly achieve double-digit growth as before . '

In 1995, IT costs grew by 14%. The main reason for the growth at the moment is the development of the web and Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system. The double-digit growth rate continued to be maintained until 2000. But since the fall of the 'dot-com world', IT costs have decreased significantly.

In the US, the overall growth this year is 5.8%, lower than the 6.4% figure of 2005. The strongest growth will take place in areas such as network equipment and services. Outsourcing and system based software, security tools.

Meanwhile, IT growth in Europe will reach about 6% this year. The Asia and Pacific region, excluding Japan, will achieve growth of 9%. China alone still maintained double-digit growth with 14% and India 21%.

IDC forecasts that IT costs will continue to grow at about 5% until 2009. Cost growth will gradually decrease, with some IT fields becoming saturated, as in the field of equipment hard network.