‘Indian IT sector to reach $350 b by 2025; products to drive growth’

The Indian IT-BPM industry is expected to reach $350 billion by 2025, and products will be a growth driver for the industry, Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar said here on Friday. The domestic software products market currently stands at $4.8 billion and growing at 10.4 per cent annually, he added.

Globally though, India accounts for just 2 per cent of the $413-billion software products market.

“Considering the growth that Indian IT is expecting in 2025, there are huge opportunities on the product side,” he said, reiterating that the industry is expected to grow at 7-8 per cent in revenue terms this year.

The IT apex body has already identified data analytics, cyber security and mobile app development as the key growth drivers for the IT products sector in the days ahead.

Chandrashekhar was speaking on the sidelines of the Nasscom Product Conclave.

He agreed that job creation in the sector is witnessing a slowdown. “It is a fact that the rate of job increase has now come down compared to the growth in revenues of a company,” he said.

Çhadrashekhar further pointed out that earlier, if revenues grew 8 per cent, jobs would also grow by a similar number. However, now job growth has halved.

In FY18, IT hiring (net addition) is expected to be in the range of 130,000-150,000, he added.

There has been “no major job loss” in the sector, said the Nasscom President. “There have been no major job losses here. What you are witnessing is a slowdown in job creation. Even if there is a deceleration of jobs happening, the scope of jobs outside of IT is growing.”

According to industry veterans, skill upgrade is the major issue that the sector is facing and around 2 lakh workforce is expected to re-skill themselves over the next few years. Around 150,000 have already undergone training.

“The industry has identified skilling up as the top focus area. Fifty-five specific new job roles and 155 new-age skills have been identified. The issue of skills is not just related to India but it is a global phenomenon,” Chandrashekhar said.