IT Investments Grew Strongly In Third QuarterIT Investments Grew Strongly In Third Quarter

IT continues to outperform the entire U.S. economy, as the value of investments in IT wares rose at an annually adjusted rate of 7.2% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported.

Overall, the gross domestic product--the value of goods and services produced in the U.S.--rose 4% last quarter. That's up 0.1 point from an early estimate and its best showing since the first quarter. In the second quarter, GDP grew 3.3%.

Information-processing equipment and software represents 0.3% of that 4%, or 7.5% of the GDP. That's down from the second quarter. Then, IT represented 16.7% of the second-quarter 3.3% GDP rate.

The Commerce Department calculated the value of those IT investments at a seasonally adjusted $575.6 billion in so-called chained dollars, pegged to the value of the dollar in 2000. In the second quarter, that figure stood at $565.4 billion. A year earlier, the government gauged IT investments at $507.1 billion.

In a year, the value of IT investments rose 13.5% from third- quarter 2003. As a comparison, the value of all goods and services produced since third quarter 2003 rose 4%.