Andhra software exports touch Rs 8,270 crore

Top 10 Firms including Satyam & Wipro account for 63% of total exports

Software exports from Andhra Pradesh in the fiscal ended March 31, 2005, has surpassed the expectations and touched Rs 8,270 crore ($1.88 billion), registering a remarkable growth of 64.5 per cent over the previous year. The hardware exports from the state accounted for Rs 40 crore.

"This growth rate is much higher than the growth rate achieved by other cities in the country. It is beyond our expectation. It signifies the global acceptance of Hyderabad as the preferred IT destination," a jubilant B V Naidu, director of Hyderabad and Bangalore Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), told mediapersons here on Friday.

Naidu said that the top 10 companies in Andhra Pradesh, including Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, Microsoft and GE Capital, have accounted for 63 per cent of the total exports.

The software was predominantly exported to USA (64 per cent of the total exports) and Europe (25 per cent) while 11 per cent of the exports were made to Australia, Japan and other Asian countries.

He said that the interesting aspect of the IT industry in the state last year was that tier II cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada achieved a 100 per cent growth rate in software exports at Rs 70 crore and 24 crore respectively.

The future strategy of STPI would be to take the IT industry to tier II. In the current fiscal, Naidu said he was expecting a 45 per cent growth in the state's software exports.

Besides the increase in exports, STPI-Hyderabad also registered a higher number of 152 new software exporting companies last year. Of these, 63 were foreign equity companies.

The projected investment from these companies was estimated at Rs 744 crore. So far, 1,300 companies have been registered with STPI out of which 250 companies have not been able to commence commercial operations.

Some of the major companies that started their operations in the state during 2004-05 include Google Online, IBM Global, Mindtree Consulting, Ascential Software, iSoft, ADEA International, Netdevices India, Manugistics Software, NCR Corporation, Mars Telecom, Xiotech India, LVL7 Systems, Beacon Global and Digital 5 Software. Besides, Deloitte has started five other subsidiaries.

Replying to a question, Naidu said that there was a proposal to set up disaster recovery data centres in four cities including Hyderabad. One such centre has already been established in Bangalore.

J C Mohanty, principal secretary to the state department of information technology and communication, said that hardware would also become a major component of the state's exports in a span of three to four years.

The state's new ICT policy provided thrust to development of infrastructure, human resources, secondary cities, research and development and hardware manufacturing sector, he said adding, "Our intention is to be the IT hotspot of the country".

Going a step further, the chief executive officer of AP Invest and advisor (IT) to AP government, C S Rao, said that Hyderabad's endeavour in the next five years is to be on par with Bangalore with regard to software exports.

He, however, conceded that in the next three years Hyderabad would not be able to catch up with Bangalore, the software exports of which stood at Rs 27,600 crore during 2004-05.