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Indian IT industry has highest growth ever: DQ Top 20

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DQW Bureau
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It was the year the infotech slowdown began. The first signs were in Oct-Dec 2000, and they were clearer in Jan-Mar 2001.


Yet, 2000-01 turned out to have the highest growth ever in India's infotech history--50.1 percent.

Total revenues for the fiscal year were Rs 49,577 crore, against Rs 33,052 crore in the previous year, according to the annual Dataquest Top 20 survey. Exports led from the front again with a growth rate of 64 percent to touch revenues of Rs 26,316 crore, while the domestic market grew at a more sedate 37.4 percent to notch up Rs 23,361 crore in revenues, according to the report.

The Top 20 Giants issue of Dataquest has ranked the HCL Group as the top infotech group in India for the second year in running. The group companies (including HCL Technologies, HCL Infosystems, NIIT, HCL Perot, and subsidiaries HCL InfiNet and HCL Comnet) added up to Rs 4,413 crore, growing 51 percent from the previous year's Rs 2,922

crore.

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Following HCL to make up the DQ Top 5 Giants club were the Tatas (Rs 4,032 crore), Wipro (Rs 3,007 crore), Compaq (Rs 1,945 crore, including Digital India) and Infosys (Rs 1,901

crore).

"This has been a great performance by the Indian IT industry in trying times," said Prasanto K Roy, Group Editor, Dataquest. "This is the first time that exports have outpaced the domestic market, but what is more significant is the great show by domestic vendors amidst a slowdown." Server sales led the growth chart segment-wise, with an increase of 76 percent, and hardware exports crossed the Rs 1,000 crore mark for the first time, Dataquest reported.

The star performers among the DQ Top 5 groups were Infosys and Compaq. Infosys grew at more than double the industry average, at nearly 115 percent, to enter the Top 5 for the first time. Compaq displaced HCL Insys from the top PC slot. The company did well in the storage space as well, with its revenues here growing by 40 percent.

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IT Industry Revenues (Rs

crore)
Year  Domestic  Exports  Total  Growth
1991-92  2,041  676  2,717  23%
1992-93  2,523  931  3,454  27%
1993-94  3,352  1,405  4,757  38%
1994-95  4,959 1,882  6,841  44%
1995-96  7,032  2,681  9,713   42%
1996-97  8,571  4,847  13,418  38%
1997-98  10,835  7,180  18,015  34%
1998-99  13,204  10,752  23,956  33%
1999-00  17,002  16,050  33,052  38%
2000-01  23,361  26,316  49,677  50%

While Compaq and Infosys were the new faces among the Giants, it was at the cost of multinationals Hewlett Packard and IBM. "Given that Infosys is the only single and software-only company among the five giants," Roy added, "while all the others are groups having diverse interests--it is really a credible showing by

Infy."

It was banks, financial institutions and insurance companies that were the demand-drivers in the domestic sector, the DQ report said. "Unprecedented server sales have catapulted the once low-lying segment to star-performer status. What a performance--a growth of 76 percent in value terms, compared to a mere seven percent in the previous fiscal. And Sun has had the picnic of its life," the report added.

On the impact of the slowdown, the survey revealed that while its punch had India reeling for a bit, it survived the rollover effect far better than any other country in the region (India was the only APAC country to report double-digit PC sales growth). "Indian enterprises stuck to their automation plans and implementation of e-business solutions. The government juggernaut also rolled on, and the computerization program at PSUs and banks dished out massive orders. Network integrators were also part of the festivities," DQ reported.

However, while the numbers were enviable, 2000-01 was a year that ended in fear, the report said. "As the US economy slowed began, as software professionals started returning home, as the slowdown hit Indian firms, as dotcoms downed shutters, as IT companies started sackings, as appointment letters weren't honored, as salary hikes were frozen, as cost-cutting binges began... it was a long fear-list."

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