In 2021, global information and communication technology (ICT) spending is forecast to reach approximately 5.3 trillion U.S. dollars. In 2020, spending remained relatively flat as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

New technologies emerge as the largest spending category Notably, new technologies are projected to eclipse the one trillion U.S. dollar mark in 2021. These include artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), but also robotics. Together, they are forecast to take a larger share of the market in the future. Specifically, new technologies are forecast to represent over 25 percent of ICT spending within the next five to ten years. Cost savings enabled through automation and cloud make it possible to direct more spending towards new technologies.

How do new technologies drive economic progress? The overall impact of next-generation technologies on the global economy is expected to be positive as they can fuel trade growth while reducing transaction costs. For example, AI can automate many different processes or may be leveraged for logistics purposes to become more efficient by planning routes based on current road conditions. At the same time, IoT has a wide variety of different use cases in many verticals, including tracking shipments in real time, thereby making delivery services more efficient. In general, if utilized properly, these technologies lead to a rapid return on investment while modernizing how goods are made and traded globally.

In 2024, spending on digital transformation (DX) is projected to reach 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars. By 2027, global digital transformation spending is forecast to reach 3.9 trillion U.S. dollars. What is digital transformation? Digital transformation refers to the adoption of digital technology to transform business processes and services from non-digital to digital. This encompasses, among others, moving data to the cloud, using technological devices and tools for communication and collaboration, as well as automating processes. What is driving digital transformation? Digital transformation growth is due to several contributing factors. Among these was COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased the digital transformation tempo in organizations around the globe in 2020 considerably. Although the pandemic is over, working from home among organizations globally has not only remained, but also increased, increasing the drive for digital transformation. Other contributing causes include customer demand and the need to be on par with competitors. Overall, utilizing technologies for digital transformation render organizations more agile in responding to changing markets and enhance innovation, thereby making them more resilient.

The United States federal government budget has allotted around 75 billion dollars toward its 2025 civilian federal agency information technology budget. As leadership and government priorities change, the IT budgets allocated to different departments tend to follow suit. The Department of Energy's IT budget increased significantly by 37 percent compared to the previous year, with 5.5 billion U.S. dollars allocated in FY 2025. Similarly, the IT budget of the Department of Homeland security also increased by 23 percent compared to the previous year, to around 11 billion U.S. dollars for FY 2025. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management saw its IT budget shrink the most among the civilian federal government agencies, decreasing by a staggering 64 percent compared to FY 2024. Since the 2022 federal budget, figures do not include the portion of the budget allocated to the Department of Defense or other classified IT spending. U.S. government budget In the United States, huge shares of government expenditures go towards the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Social Security Administration. Due in part to the country’s continually increasing budget, the government has run at an annual deficit since 2002, with its 2024 deficit estimated to over be around 1.9 trillion dollars. Cybersecurity budget One of the main facets of the U.S. government IT budget is spending related to cybersecurity. Over 12 billion U.S. dollars have been allocated towards cybersecurity in 2024. The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice have unsurprisingly had the highest cybersecurity budgets across all departments, given the sensitive nature of their work.

The statistic illustrates global spending on information and communication technology (ICT) in the first and second quarters of 2017. In the latest quarter, worldwide spending on IT services reached 480 billion U.S. dollars.

In Italy, book industry expenditure peaked to 2.38 billion euros in 2021, up from 2.15 billion euros in the previous year. Book spending was higher than that of magazines and newspapers and saw an overall increase in recent years. Yet in the coming years, the expenditure of the book industry in Italy is expected to decrease silightly, but gradually year by year.

In 2022, video game spending in Italy increased by 6.2 percent to almost 3 billion euros. In 2026, expenditure in the gaming segment is projected to increase to 3.87 billion euros annually.

This statistic depicts the share of revenue companies spent on legal disputes worldwide in 2017, broken down by industry and type of spending. During the survey, companies in the manufacturing industry spent 0.44 percent of their revenue on external legal disputes.

This statistic shows the IT leasing expenditure in companies in Sweden in 2016 and 2017, by industry. According to the source, companies in the information and communication industry had the highest IT leasing expenditure, approximately 1.1 billion Swedish kronor. The trade industry had the second highest IT leasing spending with over one billion Swedish kronor in 2017.

For 2020, it was forecasted that the spending on the paper industry in Sweden would be going to decrease, reaching roughly five billion Swedish kronor. In 2017, the investments amounted to seven billion Swedish kronor.

This statistic shows the advertising spending in Hong Kong in the third quarter of 2017, sorted by industry. Hong Kong's banking & investment services spent over 1.21 billion Hong Kong dollars on advertisements in the third quarter of 2017.

This statistic depicts the growth in global pharmaceutical research and development spending from 2015 to 2030. In 2023, the pharmaceutical industry expenditure on research and development actually increased almost 17 percent.

This statistic displays the advertising spending by industry sector in Portugal in 2017, in million euros. In 2017, the retail sector spent over one billion euros on advertising (eight percent increase compared to 2016).

The advertising industry is established and diverse in Israel. According to estimates, the revenue of the advertising sector in the country will reach about 2.36 billion dollars in 2027. In recent years, this industry is undergoing a significant change centered on a transition from advertising through traditional media channels to digital advertising. A mainly growing sector is social media advertising. Since social networks such as Instagram or Tik Tok have millions of users, advertising companies have begun to understand the significant business potential of advertising on these platforms. Projections showed that Ad spending in the social media advertising segment in Israel will amount to nearly 800 billion U.S. dollars in 2026. The power of social media influencers In the last few years, the phenomenon of influencers has developed. They could be models, musicians, chefs, comedians, or have expertise in a particular field. They usually advertise products or promote a specific agenda, often getting paid for it by companies. In 2027, the revenue of the influencer advertising industry in the country is expected to succeed at 61 million U.S. dollars, an increase of over 50 percent. As of July 2022, leading Instagram influencers in Israel included famous models such as Bar Refaeli and Neta Alchimister and singers like Anna Zak. Social media is an efficient advertising tool In the past, people were informed about new products mainly through television or the press. Nowadays, social networks are a significant source of advertising in Israel. A survey conducted in Israel in 2022 found that 48.8 percent of internet users use social networks as a tool for brand research. Social media constituted the second most popular channel for online brand research based on the respondents' answers. For instance, at the beginning of 2023, a TikTok trend of wrapping fruit roll ups over ice cream became viral. As a result, the product price in Israel increased, and there were shortages in some stores.

The statistic shows the results of a 2017 survey regarding the form of technology that could be the most significant driver of change in the logistics industry over the next five years. Around 36 percent of the respondents favored the use of predictive analytics as one of the most significant drivers over the next five years in the logistics industry.

This statistic presents the distribution of bank spending on information technology in the United States as of December 2017, by category. According to the source, U.S. banks spent around one third of their IT expenditures on labor (salaries and benefits).

This statistic displays advertising spending by industry sector in Turkey in 2017. In 2017, food sector advertisers spent 789 million Turkish lira.

NASA's requested budget for the fiscal year 2024 amounted to approximately 27.2 billion U.S. dollars, a year-over-year increase of seven percent. The largest portion of NASA's spending in FY 2024 is for their science sector, with a budget of 8.26 billion U.S dollars. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. agency responsible for aeronautics and aerospace research.

The statistic shows the average IT spendings ratio of insurance companies as a percentage of premium from 2011 to 2016. In 2014, the insurance companies spent about 3.5 percent of their direct written premium on information technology.

Global spending on information security has been growing from 2017 to 2023, increasing from just under 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 to almost 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Most spending has concentrated in security services, infrastructure protection, and network security equipment. Spending on security services is expected to reach nearly 90 billion U.S. dollars by 2024.

Continued growth in global information security market   

The information security technology market is forecast to grow in the next few years. By 2030, the worldwide spending on information security is expected to be more than triple that of 2017. Information security refers to the practice of managing access to information, whether that is securing information from unauthorized access, or verifying the identity of those who claim to have authority to access information. The rise of new markets such as the Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping securing trends, creating a shift towards managed security services and other segments of IT security. Worldwide revenue from cloud management and security services is forecast to reach almost 52 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, compared to just five billion in 2015.

In 2020, the value of digital advertising expenditure of the motor vehicle industry in Thailand amounted to approximately 2.71 billion Thai baht, indicating a significant growth compared to 1.29 billion Thai baht in 2017. Such value was also forecasted to increase to around 2.91 billion Thai baht in 2021.