Indian IT industry's revenues to grow 2.3% to $194 bn this fiscal: Nasscom

Mumbai: Despite a dip in global technology spending amid the coronavirus pandemic, the country's information technology sector is set to post a 2.3 per cent rise in revenues to $194 billion in the current fiscal, Nasscom said on Monday.

The industry added 1.38 lakh people to its workforce on a net basis during the year, taking the total number of employees to 44.7 lakh, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said in its review of the current financial year ending March 31.

Over the past few years, the industry has been clocking a revenue growth in higher single digits or double digits as the demand for IT services in a digitising world continues to grow. However, the pandemic led to a sharp dip in growth hitting tech spend while the lockdown also led to concerns over delivery as work shifted from campuses to homes.

Nasscom's President Debjani Ghosh said the industry reworked its models amid the lockdowns and ensured that work continues to get delivered as per schedules, and IT is now the first sector to call out a revival post pandemic.

"We have emerged more resilient and more relevant from the crisis. We have been the bellwether to lead the fight against COVID," she said.

Exports for the fiscal year ending March 2021 are set to grow 1.9 per cent to $150 billion while domestic revenues are projected to rise at a faster clip of 3.4 per cent to $45 billion, the industry lobby group said.

IT services segment will grow 2.7 per cent to $99 billion while Business Process Management (BPM) will see a growth of 2.3 per cent at $38 billion. Software products segment will witness a growth of 2.7 per cent at $9 billion and hardware grow 4.1 per cent to $16 billion.

The only segment which de-grew during the fiscal year is engineering and research and development where revenues were down 0.2 per cent to $31 billion.

The e-commerce segment will see a 4.8 per cent growth in revenues at $57 billion on the back of a 82 per cent jump in e-tail even as there will be a 75 per cent de-growth in e-travel sub-segments, as per Nasscom.

Nasscom said there was a 3.2 per cent decline in global tech spend on the back of a 3.5 per cent contraction in the global GDP.

The IT industry now delivers 8 per cent of Indian GDP, contributes to over half of services exports and 50 per cent of the foreign direct investment, it noted.

The domestic industry players filed 1.15 lakh patents in FY21 in India and 8,000 in the US while 1,600 new startups were added during the same period, taking the total number of such tech companies to 12,500.

In terms of outlook, Nasscom pointed to some of the listed companies mentioning about a pipeline of over $15 billion while a survey of 100 chief executives also painted a positive picture.