Latin America’s share of worldwide information technology spending is on the rise, according to research firm Gartner Inc. By the end of this year, IT spending in Latin America will equal 29% of the United States’ total of U.S. $1.033 trillion in IT spending in 2011, a percentage that will increase to 31% in 2015, according to Gartner.

>>> Chech out 2012 forecasts

Latin America is expected to close this year with IT spending of $303 billion, increasing to $383 billion by 2015. Worldwide enterprise IT spending is projected to total $2.7 trillion in 2012, a 3.9% increase from $2.6 trillion this year.

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Latin America’s share of global IT spending is increasing by 1 percentage point per quarter, said Donald Feinberg, vice president and analyst in Gartner Intelligence, at this week’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in São Paulo. “The IT spending basically referred to Brazil and Mexico results; these countries are responsible for driving growth,” he said.

Brazil is expected to account for almost half of Latin America’s IT spending in 2012, with $114 billion, an increase of 10.1% compared with 2010. Brazil is forecast grow 9.9% a year through 2014, according to Gartner.

Gartner’s projections for IT spending in other emerging markets: Asia/Pacific will close 2011 with spending of $655 billion, increasing to $911 billion in 2015; Eastern Europe will reach $150 billion this year and $184 billion by 2015; and Middle East and Africa are on track to spend $241 billion this year and $300 billion by 2015.

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