Gartner: Tablet Trend to Boost IT Spending by Billions

Surging demand for media tablets like the iPad and its conga line of competitors will bolster worldwide information technology spending this year. This according to the newest projections from Gartner, which says the 5.1 percent growth rate it predicted back in January is a bit low. The research outfit’s new projection: 5.6 percent growth.

That might seem a piddling increase, but it’s actually quite substantial–the difference between $3.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion. Said Gartner’s Richard Gordon, “Absent the addition of media tablets, the forecast would have slightly declined in constant-dollar terms; however, with their addition, there’s virtually no change in the underlying forecast growth at the level of overall IT.”

Gartner also raised its 2011 IT hardware spending estimates, lifting them to 9.5 percent from 7.5 percent. And once again, tablets were largely the reason. Global spending on the devices is expected to reach $29.4 billion this year, up from $9.6 billion last year. And that growth trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Gartner expects the tablet market to have an average growth rate of 52 percent through 2015.