Guest column

The Indiansoftware industry has zoomed from a mere US 150 million eight years ago to a whopping US 3.9 billion in 1998-99. No industry probably has done as much for the competitiveness of global corporations and, certainly, no industry has created as many millionaires in India in such a short span of time. In 1998-99, more than 203 out of the Fortune 1000, that8217;s nearly one in five, outsourced their software requirements to India. And US customers bought almost 61 per cent of the software that Indian companies exported to 91 countries around the world.

The geno-cultural factor could be India8217;s mathematical tradition, inculcated in its people. But the more business-minded clients point to cost, speed, and delivery. According to international experts, Indian software companies have a unique distinction of providing efficient software solutions with cost and quality as an advantage by using state-of-the-art technologies, a very strong capacity to handle large projects, and, above all, the ability to execute them ontime. In the coming years, software companies in India are expected to strike quite a few deals for joint ventures and strategic alliances in Europe.

The trade with European nations is growing rapidly, especially with new opportunity in Euro currency solutions. As per Nasscom8217;s study, software industry8217;s handsome performance would continue unabated and no slowdown is expected in the industry. On the contrary, even with a higher base of Rs 15,890 crore of the size of Indian software industry during 1998-99, the industry would be able to grow by more than 50 per cent and could register revenues of Rs 24,500 crore during 1999-2000. This would include Rs 17,200 crore by software and services export and Rs 7,300 crore of domestic market revenues. The study also indicates that due to increased government spending towards IT in the domestic market, as well as increase in sale of PCs, the domestic software market will fetch a record revenue of almost Rs 11,000 crore in 2000-2001. This would be almost a record 50per cent increase in the domestic market.

On the other hand, exports will continue to grow in 2000-2001 with focus on e-commerce, IT-enabled service, Euro and ERP. Exports during 2000-2001 would almost touch over Rs 25,000 crore. This means, even during next financial year, the exports would continue to grow by almost 50 per cent. It is projected that during the year 2001-02, software industry in India would be close to Rs 55,500 crore. At current level of dollar-rupee parity, this would translate to almost US 13 billion industry in that year.

The author is President of Nasscom