Do Indian IT firms vie for $11.4-billion domestic market?

With the IT clients in the U.S., Europe and Japan tightening their purse strings, Indian IT companies are scrambling to raise their share of the Indian software and IT services market, which industry body Nasscom values at around Rs 57,200 crore ($11.4 billion), reported Mint.

Mumbai-based TCS and Bangalore-based Infosys, India's largest and second largest IT service exporters, respectively, have set themselves the target of earning $1 billion, or around Rs.5,000 crore, in revenue from the domestic market in the next three to four years. Wipro wants to raise its India focus, as does mid-sized firm MindTree. In March, Employees' State Insurance Corporation, a government of India agency that provides health insurance to 10 million workers, had awarded a Rs.1,182 crore information-technology (IT) project to Wipro, which outbid other biggies like Infosys and Wipro to clinch this deal.

Adding allure to the domestic market is the plans by the sectors like government, energy and utilities, telecom, banking and finance to step up their IT spending. Customers in the US and Europe have traditionally made up as much as 80% of revenue earned by Indian exporters of software and related services.

A late 2008 report by research firm Gartner says that the Indian IT software and services segment, excluding business process outsourcing, is expected to grow at an annual pace of almost 20 percent to touch $13.2 billion by 2012.

TCS earns around $500 million (Rs2,500 crore), or nearly 8 percent of its total revenue, from Indian clients. "We have a base of key clients and solutions portfolio. We have made investments and have people, business and clients. We will accelerate all of this," a TCS spokesperson said.

However, the worry at TCS is that "India, like other emerging markets, is volatile and most business is project-based and not annuity based and hence there is a certain element of uncertainty," the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, Infosys earns less than 2 percent of its revenue (or less than Rs400 crore) from the domestic market. "The market is very large, and has matured over a period of time," said Binod HR, head of the India business unit of Infosys. He said a "big challenge" is that Indian customers are very price-sensitive.

Wipro is one of the largest system integrators in India and, according to Springboard Research, has the second largest share of the domestic market after IBM.

P.K. Gopalkrishnan, Senior Vice-President and India business head IT services of Bangalore-based MindTree said the company earns up to 5 percent of its revenue from India and aims to double it by 2014.

Increasing the domestic market share would, however, not be easy. It entails competing with global technology firms such as IBM which, according to a late 2008 report by research firm IDC, commands a 10 percent share of the Indian market. IBM is the market leader and earns revenue of around Rs 5,700 crore from the Indian market.

Agencies