Gartner announces top 100 IT vendors

Apple is the largest IT vendor with more than $218 billion in IT revenues, which is about $79 billion larger than the number two vendor, Samsung Vendor Group.

Samsung Vendor Group's IT revenues stood at $139.1 billion, followed by Google ($90.1 billion), Microsoft ($85.1 billion) and IBM with $77.8 billion, according to a study, Gartner Global Top 100.

This is the first time Gartner has 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 needs of IT buyers are shifting. CEOs are focused on growth and are more focused on realizing business outcomes from their IT spend," says 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."

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. Microsoft was a large and influential company when the Nexus of Forces began, having grown to market leadership during the web and e-business phase, and has managed to pivot to remain relevant.

The Nexus of Forces is a concept developed by consultancy firm Gartner to describe the convergence, social media, mobility, cloud computing and information patterns are creating new business opportunities.

IBM gained its size and market dominance in the earliest IT markets when servers, storage and consulting services dominated. The need for these devices and services, along with mobile phones and PCs will remain - cloud will underpin all digital business initiatives - but they will become more commoditised and less of a driver for new projects and spending.

Digital giants will leave their mark in 2017
As enterprises increasingly digitalise 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 predicts that by 2021, 20 per cent 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," said Mr. Lovelock. "Any company that wants to engage consumers in, or through, their digital world will have to consider engaging with one or more of these digital giants.

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.

Top 5 worldwide vendors by IT and components revenue, 2016 (billions of dollars)

Source: Gartner (June 2017)