The pace of the global IT industry again quickened in May. The Infoconomy Index, which tracks the growth rate of the world’s 200 largest technology companies, rose to 11.6% during the month, up from 11% in April. Not only is that the highest growth rate since late 2003, but it also represents a doubling of growth over the past year.

That strength was not universal, however. The European index, which tracks a subset for 50 companies headquartered in the region, slumped to 7.6% form 9%, its lowest level since mid-2004.

The global rate was fuelled by strong performances by major companies from a diverse set of industry sectors. Among US companies, networking giant Cisco helped push the index higher with a 22% jump in revenues, while Hewlett-Packard also had a positive impact with its 13% rise. There were also star performances among companies leveraging Indian IT services capabilities. Cognizant, which is run from the US but delivers its IT services almost exclusively from India, reported revenues up 61%, and Tech Mahindra, the Pune, India-based IT services and telecoms solutions company which acts as BT’s main outsourcing arm, turned in an 108% surge in revenues.

The sharp fall in the European index largely stemmed from the results of a single company. Alcatel-Lucent, the result of the acquisition of US networking equipment maker Lucent by France’s Alcatel, declared a 12% drop in revenues.

In fact, without the influence of Alcatel-Lucent, the European index would have been closer to 10%.

As that suggests, other European companies performed much more positively. Franco-American business intelligence software supplier Business Objects produced a 20% gain, while revenues at Paris-headquartered IT services company Capgemini were up 18%. There were other good performances elsewhere. The UK’s business applications software vendor, Sage, pushed revenues up by 26%, while London-listed but South African-headquartered Dimension Data, which specialises in network services, chalked up a 22% increase.

As those numbers indicate, the overall outlook remains bullish, with the global index likely to hit around 12% in coming months.

The Infoconomy 200 Index measures the overall growth rate of the IT industry by tracking the financial results of the world’s most important publicly listed IT companies.