Research firm Gartner on Tuesday lowered its projections for global IT spending for 2013 to $3.7 trillion due to fluctuation in US dollar exchange rates.
Gartner, in its previous forecast in the last quarter, had projected a growth rate of 4.1 percent in overall IT spending in 2013 from $3.6 trillion in 2012.
The 2.1 percentage point reduction mainly reflects the impact of recent fluctuations in US dollar exchange rates; growth in constant currency is forecast at 3.5 percent for 2013, down only slightly from last quarter, Gartner said in a statement.
"Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth," Gartner managing vice president Richard Gordon said.
Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered.
"However, Western Europe's constant currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook," Gordon said.
IT services are expected to now grow at 2.2 percent in 2013 to reach $926 billion, while data centre systems business is expected to increase by 2.1 percent to $143 billion.
The forecast for spending on devices in 2013 has been revised down from 7.9 percent growth in Gartner's previous forecast, to 2.8 percent to total $695 billion.
The decline in PC sales, recorded in the first quarter of 2013, continued into the second quarter with little recovery expected during the second half of 2013.
While new devices are set to hit the market in the second half of 2013, they may fail to compensate for the underlying weakness of the traditional PC market, Gartner said.
The outlook for tablet revenue for 2013 is for growth of 2.8 percent, while mobile phone revenue is projected to increase 7.4 percent in 2013.
Enterprise software spending is on pace to grow 6.4 percent to touch $304 billion, while Telecom services spending is forecast to grow 0.9 percent to $1.65 trillion in 2013.
Gartner said it expects the worldwide IT spending to grow by 4.1 percent in 2014 to $3.87 trillion.
Of this, devices are expected to account for $740 billion, while spending on data centre systems is expected to touch $149 billion, enterprise software ($324 billion), IT services ($968 billion) and telecom services ($1.69 trillion).