US And Global IT Market Outlook: Q3 2010

US economic growth is falling short of our already modest expectations and will expand at a snail's pace of less than 2.5% for real GDP in 2010 (avoiding a double-dip recession. As a result, we have trimmed our forecasts for the year to a still-robust 8.1% IT market growth for the US (down from our 9.9% forecast in July), with 7.4% growth in 2011. Adding telecommunications services (as we do for the first time in this report), US information and communications technology (ICT) market growth in 2010 will be 5.6% and 6.6% in 2011. With half a year's data already in hand, US computer equipment is set to pop by 19% in 2010, with all categories growing at double-digit rates. US software purchases will rise by 9.1%, with operating system software, middleware, and applications sharing the growth. Communications equipment purchases will go up by 5.5%, led by enterprise and small and medium-size business (SMB) buying. IT services growth will lag a bit, with systems integration projects picking up late in 2010 as licensed software buying increases. But US IT outsourcing and telecommunications services sales will lag, with the former rising by just 2.8% and the latter slipping by 0.9% in 2010.