Indian IT industry to grow rapidly

Software industry body Nasscom said it is confident about its projection that the IT industry in India will continue to be on the growth trajectory of 16-18 per cent during 2011-12 fiscal even as the industry maintains a cautious outlook due to the economic uncertainty in US and Europe.“There is no reason for us to be worried. We have spoken to customers and they are looking at expanding into geographies and bringing newer solutions to the market,” Nasscom president Som Mittal told reporters on the sidelines of the Nasscom BPO strategy summit 2011.Earlier during the month, the association had sought to clear the air about any possible impact of the ratings downgrade of US, the world’s largest economy, on India’s software and outsourcing exports. Nasscom had said that the crisis in the US did not have any major bearing on the country’s private sector. Although the global economic environment was a cause for concern, it was not likely to impact the Indian IT industry, in the near-term future.The international credit rating company Standard and Poor’s earlier this month downgraded the top notch AAA credit rating of the US government’s ability to pay back its creditors and investors to AA”. While the Indian market begins to get cluttered with a variety of tablets, the defining line will not be just the price factor but also the services and applications that come along with the device, say experts.Just like in the case of mobile phones, many domestic and Chinese companies have started offering a variety of low cost tablets, trying to take on high-end manufacturers like Apple and Samsung and offering tablets for as low as Rs.6,000. But experts say that the tablet market is still a very small one as it serves a very niche consumer segment. “Demand has still not surged and it’s still a very niche device, there is not yet any real uptake from the end users,” Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner, told IANS.According to Tripathi, for tablets adoption in India, it is necessary that these devices should move up the utility graph and become as indispensable as a laptop. Manufacturers should provide a value proposition in terms of both cost and applications. “The only way of taking a step forward in this direction is by putting in India specific content, including local language newspapers, music, health books, etc,” he said. At Rs.36,200, the Samsung Galaxy 750, claims to be the world’s slimmest, has a promotional offer from Vodafone of 2GB data download every month at Rs.3,000 and comes with a pre-loaded application that gives Indian consumers access to 17 Indian newspapers and magazines and 30,000 Indian language books and a mobile TV application. From / Gulf Today