BENGALURU: India’s IT services sector is likely to achieve revenues of $194 billion in FY21, nearly 8 per cent of the country’s GDP, believes industry body Nasscom.
The association’s strategic review released on Monday noted that the sector’s resilient growth was led by software exports pegged at $150 billion, while the domestic tech industry is expected to record revenues worth $45 billon during the financial year. The sector has also hired a total of 1,38,000 people in 2020.
The pan-sector growth in revenue comes despite an overall dip in tech spending globally, which recorded a decline of 3.2 per cent year-on-year.
With 90 per cent of enterprises poised to significantly increase digital investments, the association’s report said that the tech industry will benefit from the trend—digital revenues are expected to grow at five times the overall services growth rate. Meanwhile, the domestic market for IT has also expanded, especially with WFH now in vogue.
According to the review, BPO sector’s contribution to the overall revenues was $38 billion (a growth of 2.3 per cent YoY). The engineering R&D vertical, however, witnessed a de-growth of 0.2 per cent at $31 billion.
Among the leaders is the e-tailing industry, which is likely to surge by a whopping 82 per cent riding the shift toward online shopping during the pandemic.
India’s e-commerce sector, according to Nasscom, will touch the $57 billion revenue mark in FY21. As for start-ups, 1,600 new firms entered the fray in 2020 taking the total number of tech start-ups in India to 12,500. 2020 also saw the emergence of 12 new unicorns.
The report noted that upksilling in emerging technologies continues to pose a major challenge, and that there was a major gap in supply and demand for digital skills. Nasscom, President, Debjani Ghosh said that the industry is looking at the ways to include the participation of gig-workers by upksilling them to meet demand 1,38,000 workers hired by the IT/ITES sector during 2020
Demand for digital talent only set to increase
Nasscom projects that demand for digital talent is going to rise at a CAGR of 34.1 per cent during FY2O-24 whereas the skill supply is likely to grow only at 28 per cent. Around 2 ,50,000 workers were upksilled in 2020 in high-demand emerging technologies.