Consumer Spending on Technology Will Reach $1.69 Trillion in 2019

Consumer spending on technology is forecast to reach $1.69 trillion in 2019, an increase of 5.3% over 2018, according to IDC. Consumer purchases of traditional and emerging technologies will remain strong over the 2019-2023 forecast period, reaching $2.06 trillion in 2023 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.1%.

Roughly three quarters of all consumer technology spending in 2019 will be for traditional technologies. Mobile telecom services (voice and data) will account for more than half of this amount throughout the forecast, followed by mobile phones and personal computing devices. Spending growth for traditional technologies will be relatively slow with a CAGR of 2.2% over the forecast period.

Emerging technologies, including AR/VR headsets, drones, on-demand services, robotic systems, smart home devices, and wearables, will deliver strong growth with a five-year CAGR of 13.2%. This growth will enable emerging technologies to capture nearly a third of consumer spending by 2023. Smart home devices and on-demand services will account for roughly 90% of emerging technologies spending.

Communication and entertainment will be the two largest use case categories for consumer technology, representing more than 70% of all spending throughout the forecast. More than half of all communication spending will go toward traditional voice and messaging services. Entertainment spending will be dominated by watching or downloading TV, videos and movies, as well as listening to music and downloading and playing online games. The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth over the forecast period are augmented reality games (136.3% CAGR) and virtual reality video/feature viewing (47.3% CAGR).

The United States will be the largest geographic market with consumer technology spending forecast to reach $412 billion in 2019, up 5.5% over 2018. China will be the second largest market in 2019 with spending expected to reach $328 billion followed by Western Europe at $227 billion. Mobile telecom services and mobile phones will be the two largest categories in all three regions. China will also see the fastest spending growth with a five-year CAGR of 6.8%.