Hyderabad: The city has attained the distinction of crossing the dollar1 billion mark in software exports during fiscal 2003-04, representing a growth of 37 percent growth over the previous year. Hyderabad now ranks fourth in IT exports with Bangalore topping the list and Noida and Tamil Nadu following at second and third positions respectively.

The state capital is also emerging as one of the favoured destinations for outsourcing industry.

According to colonel Vijay Kumar, director of the Hyderabad unit of Software Technology Parks of India (STPH) at a press conference to highlight the exports performance, STPH's 37 per cent growth outperforms the national average of 30 per cent.
Vijay Kumar said 46.70 percent of the exports in the sector were in IT Enabled Services (ITES) against 39.16 percent last year. The ITES sector achieved a 66 per cent growth during the fiscal, and exports from this sector were at over Rs 2500 crore compared to last year's Rs 1400 crore.

STPI has fixed a target of Rs.70 billion in exports and 45 to 50 percent growth for the current fiscal that began April 1.

He said exports through datacom facilities increased to 82.15 percent of the total IT exports from 79.26 percent last year. He said, the value of software exports through datacom facilities was likely to grow further with increased bandwidths, wide global reach, access to new markets and new geographies and increased outsourcing activity to India.

Onsite consultancy projects accounted for 17.63 percent and exports through physical media 0.22 percent.

On the value of exports Satyam Computer Services topped the list with Rs. 6.51 billion, followed by Wipro at Rs. 5.88 billion, GE Capital International Services at Rs. 4.55 billion and Infosys Technologies at Rs. 3.44 billion. The others include Microsoft India (Rs 181 crore), Tata Consultancy Services (Rs 162 crore) and VisualSoft Technologies (Rs 145 crore).

The majority of the exports went to the US and Canada (63.15 percent). Exports to Europe increased from 18.72 percent to 22.97 percent. The other countries to which the exports went to include Australia , Britain , Japan and the Netherlands and countries in Asia and the Middle East.

119 new companies registered with STPH taking it to a total of 1060 units. Of these nearly 860 companies have contributed to the exports. In the current fiscal, the park has already added 19 units, he said.

The total investment made in the software sector year pegged at Rs 684 crore of which foreign companies (42) together invested Rs 307 crore while the investment from domestic companies (77) was around Rs 377 crore.

The sector generated employment of 86,000 compared to the 71,500 in 2002-03 and 64,000 in 2001-02. Overall, the industry has so far made close to Rs 3,500 crore investments in the state.

Despite competition and protests against outsourcing, Hyderabad attracted major companies during the year including Accenture, Computer Associates, Cavium Networks, Computer Science Corporation, Bank of America, Convergys, Franklin Templeton, Invensys, Kanbay Software, Pythian India, Qualcomm, Skyworks.
STPH hopes to achieve a higher growth of 40 per cent at Rs 7,000 crore exports in 2004-05, Vijay Kumar said.