Global spending on information technology and telecommunications may increase by 3.8 percent to over USD 3.8 billion in 2015. It is primarily investments in mobile computing, cloud services, big data, analytics and social networks that will be responsible for this growth. This is the prediction of the market research institute IDC, which has been closely following the development of this versatile IT infrastructure under the name of the “third platform” for quite some time and traditionally puts out ten forecasts at the end of each year. It sees 2015 as the time of explosive “innovation catalysts”.
According to IDC, wireless data – that is, data traffic via WLAN, mobile networks and satellite etc. – will attract the biggest investment, or USD 536 billion, and, at 13 percent, the strongest-growing share of investment amongst the telecommunications service providers.
The sales figures from mobile end devices and apps will continue to grow. However, the growth curve may start to plateau. IDC forecasts that in 2015 sales of smartphones and tablets will hit USD 484 billion. A large part of this sum will go to Chinese manufacturers. For mobile apps, the market researchers predict sinking download figures, but there should be more corporate mobile applications available. In the field of wearables numerous new models and functions are predicted. Sales figures, though, are expected to remain low.
Cloud services are to be one of the most important factors in the further development of IT in 2015 as well, and a total of USD 118 billion is predicted to be spent on them. In particular, the use of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will grow considerably.
Spending on software, hardware and services around big data is expected to rise to USD 125 billion in the coming year. Here it must be noted that the analysis of rich media (video, audio and images) always appears to be a stronger driving force for investment in big data.
The Internet of Things has also gained in importance. According to IDC, a third of investments in IoT technology will be focused on intelligent embedded devices outside of the information and communication technology industry.
In 2015 the data computing centres will relocate a significant proportion of their activities to cloud services. They will in turn make large investments in new hardware that is optimised for cloud applications. IDC expects that this will lead to a consolidation of providers of servers, storage, software and networks.
The “third platform” will not only affect information and communication technology, but all industries worldwide. Examples include disruption within the finance industry in terms of alternative payment networks, consequences of the expansion of the Internet of Things into areas such as communal security, public service and transport, and the use of location-based services in retail.
Other important trends are security solutions, such as biometric functions in mobile end devices, encryption and predictive threat intelligence. In addition, 3D printing will gain ever more importance even for conventional printer manufacturers.
China will play an ever greater role in the IT and telecom market. Chinese spending on IT will account for 43 percent of the industry’s growth in 2015. As well as this, the Chinese will purchase around a third of all smartphones and will also represent a third of all online shoppers. Thanks to its huge domestic market, Chinese cloud and e-commerce providers (Alibaba in e-commerce, Tencent in social networking, Baidu in search machines) will also gain international significance. The Chinese smartphone manufacturers will take over more than a third of the global market with their own brands.
The complete list of IDC Predictions 2015 (“Accelerating Innovation – and Growth – on the 3rd Platform”) is available from the IDC website for USD 5.