Driven almost entirely by sales of Macs and iPads, the PC market is the only segment of the computer hardware market that will grow in 2012, according to Forrester’s new global tech spending forecast

“Overall, though, the tech market outlook for 2012 is not bright,” writes Andrew Bartels, vice president and principal analyst serving CIOs at Forrester Research. “Growth of 3% to 4% is unimpressive, even taking into account weak growth in the US and European recession. Things will improve in 2013, with local currency growth edging up to 5.1% and the US dollar growing 4.3%. But there will need to be a significant improvement in global economic growth before global tech markets will boom.” Read more from his blog here.

According to the report, the PC market will grow by 2%. Forrester estimates that Apple will sell $7 billion of Macs and $10 billion of iPads to the corporate market in 2012. In contrast, global corporate spending on Wintel PCs and tablets will be down by 3% in 2012 and flat in 2013 as Windows 8 incentive for firms to replace old Wintel PCs mostly keeps that market level. In 2013, the PC market will grow by 6%, with Mac and iPad sales totaling $23 billion