Citing economic downturn, market research company IDC on Wednesday lowered its forecasts of worldwide information technology (IT) spending growth in 2009 to just 0.5 percent.

The company predicted in November 2008 that global IT spending will grow 2.6 percent this year.

Continued erosion of the global economy, including the prospect of negative GDP growth in many major countries, has led it to update its forecasts, IDC said.

According to the company, the greatest impact of slower growth is expected to be felt in global hardware markets, led by a steep decline in outlays for servers, personal computers and printers.

"While the outlook for 2009 is now worse than we thought just three months ago, we still expect IT spending to recover somewhat in 2010," Stephen Minton, IDC's vice president of worldwide markets and strategies, said in a statement.

(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2009)