17 Facts, Figures & Forecasts for the Global It Industry

Since the term “information technology” was coined in 1978, the sector has continued to witness exponential growth regarding revenue and implementations across different industries worldwide. The IT industry has improved many sectors of our lives including healthcare (virtual healthcare applications and telemedicine), education (computers and modern learning tools), communication (social media), and entertainment (laptops and other internet-connected devices).

Here are 17 new figures and trends for the IT industry. 

1. Global IT spending is projected to rise to about $3.8 trillion in 2019, a 3.2% increase from an estimated expenditure of $3.7 trillion in 2018
2. Communications services are expected to take the chunk of global IT spending in 2019 with an estimate of about $1.4 trillion
3. In 2017, North America accounted for 33% of the global IT industry revenue, followed by Asia (33%), Europe (22%), Latin America (7%), and Africa (5%)
4. In 2016, the US exported tech products and services believed to be worth around $309 billion
5. In the USA, 25% of the IT workforce are women
6. Information security technology market was worth about $92.1 billion in 2018
7. The global cybersecurity market is estimated to grow from $152.7 billion in 2018 to $248.3 billion in 2023
8. Worldwide spending on data storage is expected to exceed $51 billion by 2019
9. 70% of all the web’s traffic passes through a Loudoun County data center in Northern Virginia
10. AI services are estimated to generate revenues of more than $19 billion worldwide by 2020
11. With the rate of adoption of AI in various sectors of human endeavour, it is projected that it will take over 16% of jobs within the next decade
12. AI has defeated all human records in the puzzle game “2048,” achieving a high score of 839,732 and beating the game in just 973 moves without using undo
13. Augmented and virtual reality market is expected to grow to about $209 billion in 2022
14. The number of shipments of 5G-enabled smartphones will reach 2 million units worldwide in 2019
15. By 2025, the 5G market will be worth about $251 billion
16. There will be more than 20 billion Internet-of-Things connected devices by 2020
17. There are over 90 million smart speaker users in the US alone as of 2018

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This article was produced for Career FAQs by TechJury