The Hindu Business Line : `IT sector to grow at 30 pc over 5 years'

This growth can be attributed to the increasing overseas demand for IT services and the deals struck between the Indian scale companies and overseas IT companies.

IT sector's export revenue has been $17.1 billion during 2005-06. India's share in the global IT industry has also grown to74 per cent in 2006 compared with 65 per cent in 2005. The revenue, forecast by Nasscom McKinsey study for Indian IT industry, is expected to be $60 billion in 2010, which will be mostly led by Indian scale players, says `Information Technology: Winning Global Markets', a report by Edelweiss Research.

Seven listed Indian software companies have been identified as offshore Indian scale companies - Infosys, i-flex Solutions, Patni, TCS, Satyam,HCL Technologies and Wipro. TCS has struck $847-million deal with the UK-based insurance company, Pearl Group and Satyam has a multi-million dollar deal with the World Health Organisation.

Improved growth

Indian scale players have improved their offshore growth by 41 per cent during 2004-06 from 28 per cent during 2002-04. Indian scale companies and MNC-IT players are said to be leading the current high growth in the IT sector, through value added outsourcing and offshoring. Their capability to garner large offshore market share is due to their relationship with the Fortune 500 companies, ability to manage attrition and building a favourable client perception. Indian mid-tier IT players have not managed to gain large market share, owing to its low competence in creating new-age services. According to the Research, business process outsourcing services and other software services are said to be the major revenue gaining services. Low-cost location and labour available in India has attracted several software companies, such as Accenture, EDS and HP.