With talk worldwide of a US recession, soaring oil prices, and the global credit crunch, it seems natural to assume that the tech and telecoms industry will suffer along with everyone else. In fact, this doesn’t seem to be happening. According to US tech consultants IDC, IT spending in the US broadly kept pace with expectations in the first quarter, leading the company to forecast 4% growth for 2008.

True, 4% is an unexciting figure, but forecasters are more optimistic about global growth. Thanks to continuing demand in China and other emerging markets, IDC expects IT spending globally to increase by 6% this year and next. Gartner, another respected IT consultancy, is expecting 6.1% growth in IT spending this year worldwide and 5.5% next year. This is a big drop from last year’s 8.7% increase but still well ahead of forecasts of global GDP growth this year and next.

In terms of products, two of the biggest drivers of this spending will be sales of software and telecom equipment to the emerging economies. According to Gartner, software sales will increase by a compound annual growth rate of 14.3% in the five years between 2006 and 2011 in the developing world, compared to just 8.3% growth in the mature economies. Telecom equipment will show a CAGR of 12.7% in the same period, compared to just 3.8% for the developed world.

All this is welcome news for the IT and telecoms sector - with the notable exception of those companies not well established in emerging economies. If prospects for the mature economies continue to darken, those businesses may be getting a touch damp in the months ahead.