In the face of unpredictable pandemic, political and cybersecurity uncertainties, one market research firm remains optimistic in its near-term forecast …

There are many expert perspectives and viewpoints about the global tech market outlook ahead. Here is one from Forrester, which predicts that global tech investment — after being flat in the pandemic recession of 2020 -will bounce back to 6.5% growth in 2021 and 2022.

Tech spending in APAC is predicted to grow by 6.2% by this year. China’s public cloud and AI markets are expected to grow by more than 30% in both 2021 and 2022, presumably owing to China’s plans to boost its chip-making capabilities to achieve 70% semiconductor self-sufficiency by 2025.

Other forecasts

The firm expects global tech markets to rebound in 2021 in all categories:

  • Software will grow by 10.1%: Strong growth will be driven by a recovery in spending on marketing and advertising applications, which were hit hardest in 2020 as enterprises curtailed non-critical investments to focus on work-from-home, productivity, and e-commerce applications. Collaboration applications will continue to see robust demand in 2021 as enterprises develop their return-to-work environments to support anywhere-work strategies.
  • Tech consulting and outsourcing services will grow by 6.3%: This is a bounce-back from the many cancelled, frozen or renegotiated projects caused by the pandemic to date.
  • Communications equipment will grow by 5.8%: After H1 2021, new spectrum allocations and the resumption of wireless network expansion will drive capital expenditures in the second half of the year. China continues to drive 5G adoption.
  • Computer equipment will grow by 4.0%: PC shipments will sustain their momentum, driven by the needs of hybrid education and office work environments.
  • Telecom services will grow by 3.4%. Rising connectivity demands and network usage have shielded telecom service providers from the worst economic impacts of the pandemic, but revenue from office-based traffic has dipped. Remote-working, internal collaboration among teams, and remote supervision and activity tracking is expected to continue to sustain telco revenue growth.