IT spending in EMEA is forecast to total $1,3-trillion in 2022, an increase of 4.7% from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.
The 2022 growth rate will be slower than in 2021 when EMEA IT spending is expected to grow 6,3%.
The biggest change moving forward will be how IT is financed, not necessarily how much it is financed. “IT is transitioning from supporting the business to being the business – which means spending on technology shifts from a cost of operations (selling, general and administrative [SGA]) to a cost of revenue (COR), or possibly cost of goods sold (COGS),” says John Lovelock, distinguished research vice-president at Gartner. “CIOs have a balancing act to perform, saving cash and expanding revenue.”
In EMEA, enterprise software spending is estimated to have the highest growth in 2022, driven by the rise in cloud spending. “Since the start of the pandemic, cloud delivery has demonstrated elasticity and flexibility. It scaled up when needed and scaled down when required,” says Lovelock. “CIOs will increasingly use cloud alternatives to secure the quickest time to demonstrate value of their IT investments.”
Table 1. EMEA IT Spending Forecast (Millions of US Dollars)
| 2020 Spending | 2020 Growth (%) | 2021 Spending | 2021 Growth (%) | 2022 Spending | 2022 Growth (%) | |
| Data Center Systems | 36,194 | -5.8 | 38,975 | 2.2 | 40,464 | 3.6 |
| Enterprise Software | 138,624 | 6.7 | 161,472 | 9.7 | 178,259 | 10.0 |
| Devices | 173,608 | -3.5 | 206,385 | 13.7 | 207,942 | 0.7 |
| IT Services | 311,600 | -1.0 | 357,482 | 7.8 | 388,554 | 8.2 |
| Communications Services | 433,647 | 0.9 | 455,688 | 1.5 | 464,916 | 2.0 |
| Overall IT | 1,093,672 | 0.07 | 1,220,001 | 6.3 | 1,280,135 | 4.7 |
Source: Gartner (November 2021)
Gartner analysts estimate enterprise cloud spending will represent 12,5% of total enterprise IT spending in 2022. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and desktop as a service (DaaS) are expected to be the two segments where EMEA organisations will increase their spending the most in 2022, achieving 32,3% and 31,1% growth, respectively.
“The rise of enterprise application software, infrastructure software and managed services and cloud infrastructure services demonstrates that digital business is not just a one- or two-year trend – it is systemic and long-term,” says Lovelock.
After double-digit growth in devices spending in 2021, spending is expected to slow in 2022, with the segment growing 0,7% year over year. Employee’s device stack of PCs, tablets, laptops, and mobile phones continue to be optimal for hybrid work, enabling multilocation and flexible employee business productivity.