By Emmanuel Elebeke

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has projected that global spending in Information Technology and Telecommunications will grow by 3.8 per cent over the course of 2015 to around USD 3.8 trillion.

Telecom mast

The IDC’s 2015 telecom prediction forecast was based on a study conducted on the changing role of the telecom companies, Telcos, in a converging industry.

According to the global data body, the study explores how Telcos will move into alternative businesses in the coming months such as value-added services, precision mobile advertising, managed security services, and adopt network virtualization to improve their profit margins.

The Telecom prediction saw a quantum leap in the growth of IT/telecom sectors via the convergence in the current year. Some of the key trends expected to be apparent in the projections, include the growth of mobile and next-generation software, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, social media and big data.

Part of the findings in the study also indicated that technological changes would make noticeable impact on firms and consumers in the period under review.

Consequently, more of the revelations pointed out that convergence is strongly evident in the emerging technological innovations, with many forecasts for telecom crossing over into the domain of information technology, while telecom network issues are increasingly feeding back into the IT and Internet domains.

This disclosure is in line with the recent International Telecommunication Union, ITU Leadership Summit tagged: ‘The Future in Focus,’ where it was suggested that every company may effectively become a software company in one way or another in future.

IDC predicted that IoT spending will exceed USD 1.7 trillion, up 14 per cent from 2014 and may reach USD 3 trillion by 2020.