With the global economy showing signs of a gradual recovery, worldwide IT spending is on pace to total $3.8 trillion in 2014, a 3.2 per cent increase from 2013 spending, according to a study by Gartner.

"Globally, businesses are shaking off their malaise and returning to spending on IT to support the growth of their business," said Richard Gordon, Managing Vice-President at Gartner.

"Consumers will be purchasing many new devices in 2014; however, there is a greater substitution towards lower cost and more basic devices than we have seen in prior years."

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is an indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets.

Devices market

The devices market (including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones and tablets) is forecast to return to growth in 2014, with a worldwide spending of $689 billion, a 4.4 per cent rise from 2013. However, in top-line spending, a shift in the product mix continues to be seen in the marketplace.

Demand for highly-priced premium phones is slowing, with buyers in mature countries preferring mid-tier premium phones, while those in emerging countries favour low-end Android basic phones.

Product pricing

The number of traditional PC users is contracting to a set of fewer, albeit more engaged, users. In general, consumers are opting to buy premium ultramobiles as notebook replacements and purchasing tablets as additional devices. As market power shifts to the buyer, and key product innovations become ubiquitous, product pricing is becoming the primary differentiator.

Data centre systems

Data centre systems spending is projected to reach $143 billion in 2014, a 2.3 per cent to rise from 2013. In terms of enterprise network equipment trends, cloud and mobility are the biggest demand drivers.

Virtualisation and cloud adoption are generating significant market traction for data centre. Ethernet switches and the proliferation of mobile endpoints is continuing to drive significant demand for the wireless LAN equipment market.

IT services

IT services is forecast to total $964 billion in 2014, up 4.6 per cent from 2013. IT services buyers are shifting spending from consulting (planning projects) to implementation (doing projects), and Gartner analysts expect a steady growth in the IT services market as the economic outlook, and along with it investment sentiment, improves.

Telecom services

Telecom services spending is projected to grow 1.3 per cent in 2014, with spending reaching $1.655 trillion.

Fixed voice services continue to decline from substitution effects occurring a bit faster than previously anticipated, affecting the balance of wireless-only households in important markets such as Japan, as well as the migration of enterprise lines due to Session Initiation Protocol trunking (the use of voice over IP to facilitate the connection of a private branch exchange to the Internet).