New Delhi, July 7 (IANS): Spending on information technology globally is forecast to be flat this year -- totaling $3.41 trillion -- slightly up from last quarter's forecast of negative 0.5 percent growth, market research firm Gartner said on Thursday.

The current Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast assumed that the UK would not exit the European Union. 

“With the UK's exit, there will likely be an erosion in business confidence and price increases which will impact the UK, western Europe and worldwide IT spending," said John-David Lovelock, research Vice President at Gartner, in a statement.

Data centre systems' spending is projected to reach $174 billion in 2016 -- a 2 per cent increase from 2015. 

Global enterprise software spending is on pace to total $332 billion -- a 5.8 percent increase from 2015. 

Devices spending is projected to total $627 billion by the end of 2016. Spending in the IT services market is expected to increase 3.7 percent, totaling $898 billion. 

"Japan is the fastest-growing region for IT services spending with 8.9 percent growth," the report said. 

Communications services spending is projected to total $1.38 trillion in 2016 -- down 1.4 percent from 2015. 

"2016 marked the start of an amazing dichotomy. The pace of change in IT will never again be as slow as it is now, but global IT spending growth is best described as lackluster," Lovelock added.