17 August 2005 Market watcher IDC predicts that worldwide spending on IT will grow at around 6% a year until 2009, when total expenditure will top $1.34 trillion.

IDC analysts report that the bulk of spending will be come from the banking, government and manufacturing sectors.

But industries such as communications and media and healthcare look set to provide the greatest increases in spending, according to Anne Songtau Lu, programme manager for IDC.

“Both of those markets have interesting dynamics and are worth watching closely,” she said.

Currently IDC estimates that global IT spending amounts to roughly $1.06 trillion each year. By 2009, it predicts organisations will spend $1.34 trillion, a compound annual growth of 5.9%.

Total spend by the communications and media industry is set to increase from $95 billion in 2005 to $128 billion by the end of 2009, fuelled by heavy investment in network equipment, PCs, peripherals and storage.