London Nov 8 (IANS) IT spending in Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2018 -- an increase of 4.9 per cent from an estimated spending of $974 billion in 2017 -- market research firm Gartner said on Wednesday.
"The UK has EMEA s largest IT market and its decline of 3.1 per cent in 2017 impacts the forecast heavily " said John-David Lovelock Research Vice President Gartner in a statement.
"Weak sterling and political uncertainty since Brexit are reducing UK IT spending in 2017 while other major IT markets in EMEA grew steadily " Lovelock added.
In 2017 however all categories of IT spending in EMEA underperformed global averages while currency effects played a big part in the weakness in 2017 and will also contribute to the strength forecast in 2018 the market research firm noted.
"In 2017 we re seeing a pause in EMEA enterprise spending due to the switch to as-a-service offerings gaining momentum " said Lovelock.
All categories of enterprise IT spending will return to growth in 2018 but only IT services and software will grow strongly at 4 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively.
Enterprise spending on devices and communications services continues to fall behind in 2018 growing at 2 per cent or lower thus failing to recoup the losses of 2017.
--IANS
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