Although weak economic growth through 2011 will make for a challenging environment for vendors of computing equipment, the segment will grow 7.5% over the year's full course, according to the latest Gartner forecast.

Growth rate in the segment will be surpassed by the market for telecom equipment, expected to grow 9.1% in 2011. As a whole, the global IT market is expected to grow 5.1% from 2010 ÔÇô a revision from Gartner's previous forecast of 3.5% growth.

The analyst firm's latest forecast is that worldwide IT spending will total $3.6 trillion in 2011. Size of the market in 2010 totaled $3.4 trillion. In 2010, the IT industry outperformed Gartner's forecast by 2.2%.

Gartner said dollar-denominated forecasts continued to be affected by currency exchange rate fluctuations. The company attributed a large portion of the increase in growth from the original 2010 forecast to recent devaluation of the US dollar against other currencies.

Richard Gordon, a research VP at Gartner, said that while favorable US dollar exchange rates helped growth in IT spending exceed five percent in 2010, a similar growth rate was "far from certain" in the still-uncertain macroeconomic climate.

"While the global economic situation is improving, the recovery is slow and hampered by a sluggish growth outlook in the important mature economies of the US and Western Europe," Gordon said.

"There are also growing concerns about the ability of key emerging economies to sustain relatively high growth rates. Nevertheless, as well as a fundamental enabler of cost reduction and cost optimization, investment in IT is seen increasingly as an important element in business growth strategies."