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This figure means that the IEA is maintaining its earlier estimate.
Total demand was estimated to be 78 million barrels per day in 2003, it said.
Global oil production increased to 80.27 barrels a day in March, up 1.0% on February's levels.
Demand had grown by 2.4% in the first three months of 2003 but would expand at a lower rate for the remainder of the year, the IEA said.
A higher demand for fuel to to the US-led military intervention in Iraq had been largely offset by falling airline activity, hit by both the conflict and the outbreak of the pneumonia-like Sars virus.
Members outside the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - which groups 30 industrialised democracies - would account for 46% of oil demand growth, up from the 42% predicted in February, the IEA said.
Production by members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), but excluding Iraq, stood at 25.86 million barrels a day last month, 1.4 million barrels a day higher than the ceiling set by the cartel.
Iraq accounted for a further 1.46 million barrels per day in March, the IEA said, but added that the country's short-term production capacity in the wake of the US-led invasion remained unclear.
"While the damage to oil infrastructure appears limited so far, the timetable and the size of the recovery of production in Iraq and Nigeria are uncertain."
War in Iraq had reduced Iraq's production by around one million barrels a day, the IEA said, while ethnic unrest in the Niger Delta region had cut Nigeria's oil output by around 200 000 barrels a day.
The higher global production in March had come mainly from increases of 490 000 barrels a day in Venezuela, 450 000 barrels a day in Saudi Arabia and 245 000 barrels a day in Kuwait, the IAE said.
