Software Sector Grew 8% in Fiscal 2016-17: Union Finance Minister

The Indian IT industry grew 8 percent to $140 billion (Rs 8,91,700 crore) in fiscal 2016-17 from $129 billion (Rs 8,256 crore) in the previous fiscal (2015-16), said the Economic Survey for the current fiscal 2017-18 on Monday. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled the Survey report in Parliament earlier in the day. Revenue from the Business Process Management (BPM) and software exports, however, grew 7.6 percent to $116 billion in the fiscal under review (2016-17) from $108 billion.

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The IT industry revenue consists of software and back-office services (BPM). According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, software export growth was flat at 0.7 percent. Software exports in the first half (April-September) of fiscal 2017-18 grew 2.3 percent. Britain, Europe and the US accounted for about 90 percent of the total IT and IT-enabled services.

E-commerce market grew 19 percent to an estimated $33 billion in 2016-17. “As there are new challenges surfacing in these traditional geographies, demand from APAC, Latin America and West Asia is growing and new opportunities are emerging for expanding in continental Europe, Japan, China and Africa,” noted the report. The industry is estimated to employ 4 million people in 2016-17, with an addition of about 73,000 persons over 2015-16.

The industry comprises over 16,000 firms that offer the complete range of services with over 4,750 start-ups. “The share of ICT in total services exports declined marginally during the decade (2006-2016), while the ICT share in total services exports has increased in economies like China, Brazil, Russia, Philippines, Israel and Ukraine, indicating competition from them from us,” added the survey.

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