Mumbai, Jun 20 (IANS): Apple was the largest vendor in 2016 with over $218 billion in IT revenue -- approximately $79 billion larger than Samsung (with $139 billion) at second spot, Gartner said on Tuesday.

Google with $90.1 billion was third, Microsoft with $85.7 billion at fourth spot, and IBM with $77.8 billion was at fifth position when it came to IT revenue in 2016.

"The needs of IT buyers are shifting. CEOs are focused on growth and are more focused on realising business outcomes from their IT spend," said John-David Lovelock, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner.

"The 'Nexus of Forces' has been the focus of attention for many years. However, the impact of digital business is giving rise to new categories," he added.

'Nexus of Forces' refers to the convergence of social, mobility, cloud and information that drive new business scenarios.

This is for the first time that Gartner published a ranking of the top 100 largest tech companies in the world based on estimates for their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments.

"The top three vendors (Apple, Samsung Vendor Group and Google) can attribute much of their size to their solid alignment with the 'Nexus of Forces'," the report added.

As enterprises increasingly digitalize their products and services, digital giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) can become involved in, or even take over, the digital experience.

Gartner predicted that by 2021, 20 percent of all activities an individual engages in will involve at least one of the top seven digital giants.

"Digital giants effectively become gatekeepers for any business that delivers digital content and services to consumers," Lovelock added.

The focus of the digital giants has mainly been in the consumer, citizen and employee world.

Because the digital giants have not yet been as focused on business to business (B2B), there is opportunity for other companies to take the lead.