The laborious efforts of the Indian government to make the subcontinent a hotbed of software development is finally beginning to bear fruit in a big way. The policy was instituted way back in the mid-1970s, and for many years meant only that India was a last resort for people needing laborious coding and and conversion work done. The country’s leading software companies are well beyond that now and the industry increased sales by 47% in the 1993-94 financial year to March, to the equivalent of $553m, the National Association of Software and Service Companies said. According to the Reuter news agency, reporting from New Delhi, the agency listed the top 15 software companies as follows:
Company 1993-94 Turnover
1 Tata Consultancy Services $16.9m 2 Electronics Corp of India Ltd $14.2m 3 CMC Ltd $11.5m 4 Onward Computer Technology $7.2m 5 Tata Unisys Ltd $5.4m 6 Wipro Infotech Ltd $5.3m 7 Sonata $5.0m 8 NIIT Ltd $4.7m 9 Mastek Ltd $4.2m 10 Wipro Systems Ltd $4.2m 11 Pertech Computers Ltd $3.6m 12 ITC Ltd $3.5m 13 Digital Equipment (India) Ltd $3.0m 14 Mafatlal Consultancy Ltd $2.7m 15 Citicorp Info Tech Inds Ltd $2.3m
The agency said that exports rose by 50% to $329m while the domestic industry grew by over 42% to $224.2m. The figures do not include in-house software development work taken up by domestic firms and systems software that is bundled with hardware.Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Unisys, part of India’s biggest industrial conglomerate, were the two top exporters, the latter a joint venture with Unisys Corp that started life as Tata Burroughs.
