IDC: Digital Spend $3.4T In 2020

A newly launched research program in consumer spending on digital devices, services and content from International Data Corporation (IDC) holds some interesting predictions about consumer spend on digital goods in 2020. Here are some of the key findings.

The IDC’s Consumer Spending Priorities: Tech and Services program projects that consumer spending on digital devices, services and content will reach $3.4 trillion worldwide in 2020. Further, IDC’s research projects that the rate of spending on digital goods will rise an average of 4.7 percent year on year from 2015.

Intriguingly, consumer spending on digital devices will fall from 28 percent in 2015 to 22 percent by 2020, said the IDC, while consumer spending on digital content is projected to rise at 12.6 percent annually. The Consumer Spending Priorities program also found that digital services will maintain a 61 percent share of consumer digital spending in 2020 by growing 4.9 percent year on year.

The IDC’s findings show that a majority of the upcoming change in consumer spending categories will be driven by regions outside of the United States, particularly in developing countries where consumer spending on digital content and services and media spending are all gaining.

Jonathan Gaw, research manager for the IDC’s Consumer Spending Priorities program, was quoted as saying: “Clearly, the value of the devices is derived primarily as conduits for the content and services that they transport and the applications that they enable.”

Prior IDC research found that the smartphone market would only grow by 1.6 percent year over year in 2016, which is down from 10.4 percent in 2015. IDC, which provides market forecasts for technology companies across the world, said that one of the reasons for the significant deceleration is the saturation of devices in developed markets (U.S., Canada, Japan and Western Europe).

However, emerging markets like those in Asia (other than Japan), the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe are expected to grow within the market between 2015 and 2020.