Software export figures challenged

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Softw are export figures challenged

The Asian Age India | Our Special Correspondent

Mumbai: The US department of commerce has said that Indian software exports
to the US totalled $1.6 billion in 2002-03. These figures have been debunked
by the CII which says that Indian software exports to the US totalled $6.3
billion. Revealing the huge discrepancy of nearly Rs 22,000 crores, Chip
magazine, an IT end-user magazine has questioned this huge discrepancy in
its edit in the latest issue.

The magazine editor, Charles Assisi says that what concerns him is the fact
that the thumb rule generally is that the top twenty companies usually
account for 80 per cent of all exports, but in the case of the software
industry the top twenty companies account for less than 20 per cent of all
exports in 2003. "So there is an aberration" he said.

He writes, "During the period under scrutiny, Nasscom figures indicate that
the total software exports from India were of the order of $9.5 billion. Of
this, the top 20 Indian IT companies accounted for $4.5 billion. What it
means is simply this: the top 20 Indian software companies exported less
than half what the industry as a whole could manage."

He adds that even assuming that the Indian IT industry is indeed an
exception to the rule. "That means, the top 20 apart, there are software
companies who collectively generate $5.1 billion (Rs 24,000 crores). For the
period in question, I reckon there were close to 830 software companies. To
create this kind of money, wouldn’t each of these software companies have
generated on average Rs 30 crores? The latest statistics put out by Nasscom
clearly indicate only 12 Indian IT companies generated revenues in excess of
Rs 500 crores. After digging a little deeper to get a better picture, only
172 Indian companies earn over Rs 30 crores. This number was culled from a
survey of India’s Top 200 IT companies by the widely-respected Dataquest."

This is not the first time that the export figures of the Indian software
industry put out by Nasscom have been questioned. A few years ago Gartner
the worldwide IT research and consultancy firm had disputed Nasscom’s
figures and Nasscom had to revise its figures on the lower side.