Bangalore, May 6 (IANS) The Indian IT industry is set to witness a single-digit growth in software and services exports in 2009-10 because of global recession and lower technology spending in the US and Europe, a top industry body official said Wednesday.
“Software exports of Indian IT industry are projected to grow in single digit this fiscal due to economic slowdown and lower tech budgets in major markets like the US and Europe. We will come out with an estimate for this fiscal in June after we get the data on export revenues in the last fiscal,” Nasscom president Som Mittal told reporters here.

Admitting that the Indian IT industry was passing through challenging times after years of double-digit growth, Mittal said the global meltdown had created an opportunity for consolidation and moving up the value chain to address new markets and verticals.

He said till the second quarter of last fiscal, the industry was on track to achieve the $50-billion export target by 2008-09.

“After a record CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) of 30 percent for five-six years, we revised our software export revenue estimates for the last fiscal to 16-17 percent ($47 billion) due to the global recession,” he said on the margins of a news conference.

Though there are signs of recovery amid indications that the US economy was bottoming out, Mittal said no dramatic shift in the growth pace was expected in the next three-four quarters.

“The aspiration to reach $60 billion by 2010 is at risk since an unprecedented slowdown is expected in key markets overseas, especially the US and Europe, which account for about 80 percent of Indian software exports,” Mittal said.

As a result, Nasscom has extend the target year for achieving the $60-billion export revenue by three-four quarters to 2011 from 2010.

“On a wider base, export growth in single digit is not bad. The growth pace may not be as scorching as it was till last fiscal or in double digits in the last fiscal. We are not talking about de-growth but lesser growth, albeit in single digit,” Mittal added.