According to a new survey by the research house, more than 50 percent of the large organizations surveyed in China have maintained their hardware budgets at the same level as prior to the downturn, or have even increased their hardware budget.

When changes were made, budgets for servers and storage remained relatively stable while budgets for PCs and printers were more likely to be reduced, said Gartner, adding that more than 70 percent of organizations maintained the same budget in 2009 as they had in 2008 for server and storage.

The Gartner survey found that large Chinese organizations still appear fairly confident of internal conditions and are prepared to continue investing in IT, despite the global economic downturn.

The survey asked respondents to identify significant drivers of investment in their organization for 2009. The key drivers were in order of priority: improving operational efficiency, improving employee productivity followed by reducing operational costs, said Gartner.

"China remains a relatively buoyant market for IT vendors who can help IT users to achieve greater efficiency and productivity while reducing costs," said Jennifer Wu, Gartner research vice president.