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CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has crossed a milestone in software exports
by achieving $1.1 billion (Rs 5,223 crore) in exports during 2001-02,
registering a whopping growth of 67.8 per cent from $677 million (Rs
3,116 crore).
This staggering growth, during the most difficult period in the
history of software sector worldwide, is expected to take the state
close to Karnataka, the top software exporter in India.
“Last year, Tamil Nadu was ranked third in the country. Now
with this growth, it might move up to the second place beating other
contenders like Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh,” sources said.
Application software, consulting activity and system software
continue to account for the major share, with 89.65-per-cent of total
software exports, according to the Software Technology Parks of India,
Chennai.
“The contribution from IT-enabled services was 6.5 per cent.
The ITES and BPO sectors are expected to grow stronger in the coming
years. Others like Web Applications and product development accounted
for 3.53 and 0.32 per cent of total exports, respectively,” said R
Rajalakshmi, Director, STPI-Chennai.
Notably, export revenue from offshore projects was higher (Rs
3,300 crore) than the income from onsite works (Rs 1,717 crore). Also,
hardware exports were at Rs 482 crore.
There are 558 software export companies in the state, apart from
six firms in Pondicherry. The STP units alone made exports to the tune
of Rs 4,646.62 crore, while firms at the Madras Export Processing Zone (MEPZ)
accounted for Rs 206.55 crore.
TCS has become the top exporter from the state, followed by HCL
Technologies, Pentasoft, Infosys and Wipro. The other players in the
top-10 exporters list include Cognizant, Covansys, SSI, Polaris,
Orbitech and Satyam Computer.
While there are 13 companies with exports in the range of Rs
50-1,500 crore, 32 firms are exporting between Rs 10-50 crore, 112
entities are in the Rs 1-10 crore category.
Interestingly, though 75 multinational companies (or their
subsidiaries) have presence in Tamil Nadu, their contribution to exports
is only Rs 604 crore.
Apart from Chennai, the software prosperity has spread to
Coimbatore (Rs 42.55 crore), Tirunelveli (Rs 1.59 crore), Vellore (Rs
0.67 crore), Trichy (Rs 5.24 crore), Thanjavur (Rs 0.65 crore), Madurai
(Rs 0.26 crore) and Thiruvallur (Rs 0.02 crore).
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