LONDON – The ongoing digital transformation of business and society has been shifted into overdrive by the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering major changes in key segments ranging from online services, to capital spending, to the cloud, to the electronics supply chain.

In response to COVID-19, consumers, employees and citizens across all demographics and sectors worldwide are embracing an array of digital activities and technologies throughout their personal and professional lives. This fundamental change is prompting the technology industry to redirect its investments and reconsider its roadmaps, according to Omdia's latest report, Connecting the Dots: ​Key strategic opportunities in a post-COVID-19 world​.

"The notion that consumers and enterprises will conduct a growing amount of their lives and businesses online is nothing new," said Clint Wheelock, chief research officer at Omdia. "At a macro level, this is a change that's been happening gradually over nearly 40 years. However, the scale and scope of the COVID-19 is changing that. With more people necessarily relying on technology to work, shop, and socialize than ever before, the move to adopt next-generation technologies, services and strategies is accelerating at an unprecedented rate." ​

Omdia has identified five interlinked areas where the changes spurred by COVID-19 will cut most deeply across consumer, enterprise, industrial, device, component and service provider markets: ​

Key data points in the report include:

Supply-chain impacts

​Demand for an array of digital services from consumers and employees in enforced lockdown will drive increased investment in the technology to support these offerings, both during and after the pandemic.​

Increased demand for data-center servers has resulted in record first-quarter revenue for the market. Omdia anticipates this phenomenon will continue through the first half of 2020 to facilitate the provision of digital services, but a weaker second half due to worsening enterprise IT spend. For the entire year of 2020, Omdia anticipates the server market will grow by 8 percent on a unit basis. This represents a 5 percent upward revision compared to Omdia's previous growth forecast.​

Figure 1:

Growing demand for digital services will be reflected in other parts of the technology supply chain. Omdia forecasts that semiconductor revenue will pass $120 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 9.7 percent year-on-year. Inventory levels of memory chips have been lean this year, due to demand from hyperscale data centers, but also because of strong PC sales driven by work-from-home and online-education mandates. ​

The supply of silicon, chemicals and manufacturing consumables involved has also been impacted minimally by COVID-19. Chemical and material suppliers are anticipating only a minor slowdown in demand during the first half of 2020. A modest recovery is forecast throughout the second half of 2020 and beyond as manufacturing companies ramp facilities to accommodate a rebound in demand during the third and fourth quarters. The long-term outlook remains strong, with 5G, data center servers and other next-generation technologies driving increased demand for materials used in chip manufacturing.

Omdia