AppLabs targets 30% revenue growth

Philadelphia-based independent testing and quality management company AppLabs is eyeing a revenue growth of 30 per cent this financial year, from the current Rs 490 crore right now, on the back of enhanced focus on verticals like risk assessment, especially useful for banks and financial sector for compliance after downturn.

Speaking to Business Standard, AppLabs founder chairman Sashi Reddi, said, “With new regulations coming into play for financial sector, we are depending on new core areas in software testing business to boost revenues.”

The company handles contracts worth Rs 9 crore to Rs 30 crore. Currently it has 900 employees working in its offices in Hyderabad, London and Philadelphia. AppLabs currently earns 25 per cent of its revenues from services offered to software companies, 10 per cent from hardware companies, about 20 per cent from pharma and healthcare companies while the remaining is contributed by the hospitality sector.

With more companies seeing testing as something that can be easily outsourceable, Reddi said AppLabs will be adding around 600 offshore jobs during this year to cash in on the demand.

In a parallel development, Reddi-owned FXLabs, a Rs 34 crore gaming company, is investing over Rs 70 crore in developing and marketing four computer games.

The company has spent Rs 3 crore to develop a computer game ‘Ghajini’, after the Aamir Khan movie scheduled to release next year. Of the four games, two are for release in India, which have been indianised in terms of packaging and characters in the games.

“In India, somehow computer games have not caught on much. Also, understanding the right pricing strategy for computer games in India is important or the product may not sell. For instance, we had launched ‘Inferno’ computer games for Rs 499. It did not sell. We are now launching it in US for Rs 2,000 a piece and our market survey says that it will click,” claimed Reddi.

Among other computer games, FXLabs has got the rights for launching Archies computer games, developed at a cost of Rs 9 crore. The company is also investing over Rs 3 crore to introduce computer game ‘Dhoom2’, Reddi informed.