Bangalore: The Indian Information technology industry can now breathe a sigh of relief with a forecast by Gartner that says Indian enterprise IT spending across all industries is expected to grow in 2012 by 10.2 percent that would estimate above $39 billion as compared to previous year's $36 billion.

The euro debt crisis and the sluggish economy globally have been giving jitters to IT industries all over. Recently the research firm had cut the IT spending growth forecast (Annually) from 4.6 to 3.6 percent, on the contrary the Indian Enterprise IT spending Growth comes as pleasant surprise. The growth of IT sector in India is expected to continue and the annual increase is likely to exceed through 2015.

Gartner’s Indian-specific research says that retail sector would witness the highest growth. “The retail industry is expected to achieve the strongest growth in percentage terms in 2012, where IT spending is forecast to grow 11.8 per cent. Recent decisions to allow 100 per cent FDI in single brand retail, and up to 51 per cent in multi brand retail, are expected to provide the sector with a significant boost in terms of IT usage and adoption,” Mr Derry Finkeldey, principal research analyst at Gartner, said.

Businesses especially the retail sectors are looking up IT as the only option for their technology management, support for the challenges of drastic growth of customers, initiating innovation in business, supply chain management etc.

“These demands are being placed while the IT infrastructure within many enterprises may not be entirely in place. IT is also in transition from being viewed as a back-office support function to a frontline business-focused function,” Derry said

As per the research government- and state-owned enterprises, the large manufacturing units, communications and financial services sectors would provide the best opportunity ,drive growth and be the revenue premium revenue generators.