IDC FUTURESCAN
is a collection of metrics of IT industry leading indicators and customer
surveys. Values are based on expectations of future growth, with a value
of 1000 equating to zero growth and each 10 points representing roughly
1% of expected growth.
These are external indicators only and don't represent IDC's
forecast for the market, which is based on many more inputs and which
relies on strict methodologies and market definitions.
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This Month's Results
Perhaps its to be expected – our fourth month of upward progress would hit a wall.
Actually, it's not so bad. The buyer's metric has some statistical play in it, which means it could be higher (or lower), and the market indicators will naturally get smaller as the months behind us get less disastrous, making comparison to them less dramatic.
We are all pretty much up on the economy, right? The stimulus plans seemed to have worked – or at least we avoided depression – and there is less and less talk about a double recession. Just a jobless recovery.
However, word from the field – meaning customers and IDC analysts – is that IT shipments are picking up. In some sectors, January looks better than December.
More and more it seems this may be a result of the penalty for NOT upgrading or replenishing infrastructure – equipment coming off warranty, service contracts running out, etc.
At the moment, IDC's forecast for U.S. IT spending growth in the next 12 months is 2.8%, midway between the indicators.
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History
After three quarters of steady upward motion, our indicators dropped back this month.
But we won't panic, will we? The market indicator's fall was more or less inevitable, as we mentioned last month, because it is based on comparison to conditions in the past. As the past got worse, the indicator went up.
And the buyer intent indicator, the result of a survey, is subject to both polling variances and, it looks like, the winter doldrums.
The good news is that the macroeconomic forecasts are relatively stable. IT budgets will pick up sooner or later.
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Buyer Intent
History: |
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This is the fourth month the buyer indicator has been above zero growth (1000), although the CIO component dropped back into negative territory.
But enough external indicators are positive, that we will consider the buyer intent trajectory to be, by and large, upward.
Of course it all goes sector by sector, initiative by initiative. The hottest individual market these days is security solutions in the government sector. Other areas are storage management and anything to do with the health care industry.
This year it also looks like PC, server, and storage revenue growth will also be nicely positive – after a double digit drop last year. Mobile smart phones will be especially hot.Internet commerce will be up, virtualization on a double-digit path, and Web 2.0 applications storming the enterprise. How can IT spending NOT go up?
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Market
Indicators History |
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For the first time in almost a year, our revenue forecast indicator beat out the macroeconomic indicator. Blame the stock market, which fell from last month and compares itself now to a better month than January's metric did.
Buried in the blue line are pretty good GDP and profit forecasted growth for 2010 and 2011.
The rising revenue forecasts are also good news – since they represent real money. The only problem is that Wall Street analysts are a little vague on currency effects in their forecasts (IDC forecasts in constant dollars). So some of that expected growth could be based expectations of a falling dollar.
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The Buyer Intent metric is based on surveys of 400-500
U.S. CIOs and line-of-business executives on their expectations
for IT spending growth during the next 12 months. Results
are carefully weighted to be representative of the U.S.
market. These surveys are conducted monthly by the Quantitative
Research Group (QRG) within IDC's Global Research Organization.
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The Market Indicator metric combines inputs from economic
and IT industry supply-side indicators including:
- The stock market (S&P 500 over last 6 months)
- Current interest rates
- The current GDP forecast for the next 12 months
- The current US corporate profit forecast (next 12 months)
- The IDC IT Revenue Forecaster (% revenue growth expected
next 2 quarters)
IDC combines and weights the inputs using information
developed in its Leading IT Indicators program on the
relationship of macroeconomic trends to IT spending.
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IDC FUTURESCAN is a collection of metrics of IT industry leading indicators
and customer surveys. Values are based on expectations of future
growth, with a value of 1000 equating to zero growth and each
10 points representing roughly 1% of expected growth.
These are external indicators only and don't represent
IDC's forecast for the market, which is based on many
more inputs and which relies on strict methodologies and market
definitions.
For more information about any of IDC's Black Books or other
GRO products, please contact Amie White at awhite@idc.com
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