The coronavirus (COVID-19) will by far have the most impact on the technology industry in 2020. It will put incredible strain on the world’s economy, which will be effectively halted for three months or more. It is effectively a stress test on companies’ ability to cope with extreme shocks. COVID-19 will test the financial robustness of companies, and many will not survive this initial phase. Almost all others will suffer significant drop in revenues, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData has published a fully revised report, Tech, Media & Telecom Trends 2020, to reflect and analyse the impact of COVID-19 on 17 separate technology, media and telecom (TMT) sectors and leading companies. It discusses the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on each sector, and ranks on a company-by-company basis the individual impact of COVID-19 – alongside nine other themes that affect that sector. The report found that all sectors will be negatively impacted, with IT Services recording the bleakest long-term outlook.

Stuart Ravens, Chief Analyst for Thematic Research at GlobalData, comments: “The IT Services industry will be worst hit. The short-term pain it will experience trying to deliver existing projects while its clients are locked down for three months will be replaced by the long-term pain of a massive slowdown in IT projects as companies scale back spending to project 2020 profits.”