The information technology industry in India comprises information technology services and business process outsourcing.^[1] The share of the IT-BPM sector in the GDP of India is 7.4% in FY 2022.^[2][3] The IT and BPM industries' revenue is estimated at US$ 245 billion in FY 2023.^[4][5][6] The domestic revenue of the IT industry is estimated at $51 billion, and export revenue is estimated at $194 billion in FY 2023.^[5][6] The IT–BPM sector overall employs 5.4 million people as of March 2023.^[7][5][6] In December 2022, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha informed that IT units registered with state-run Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and Special Economic Zones have exported software worth Rs 11.59 lakh crore in 2021-22.^[8][9]

History

The Electronics Committee also known as the "Bhabha Committee", created a 10-year (1966–1975) plan laying the foundation for India’s IT Service Industries.^[10] The industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the establishment of Tata Consultancy Services^[11] who in 1977 partnered with Burroughs which began India's export of IT services.^[12] The first software export zone, SEEPZ – the precursor to the modern-day IT park – was established in Mumbai in 1973. More than 80 percent of the country's software exports were from SEEPZ in the 1980s.^[11]

Within 90 days of its establishment, the Task Force produced an extensive background report on the state of technology in India and an IT Action Plan with 108 recommendations. The Task Force could act quickly because it built upon the experience and frustrations of state governments, central government agencies, universities, and the software industry. Much of what it proposed was also consistent with the thinking and recommendations of international bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and World Bank. In addition, the Task Force incorporated the experiences of Singapore and other nations, which implemented similar programs. It was less a task of invention than of sparking action on a consensus that had already evolved within the networking community and government.

Regulated VSAT links became visible in 1994.^[13] Desai (2006) describes the steps taken to relax regulations on linking in 1991:

In 1991 the Department of Electronics broke this impasse, creating a corporation called Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) that, being owned by the government, could provide VSAT communications without breaching its monopoly. STPI set up software technology parks in different cities, each of which provided satellite links to be used by firms; the local link was a wireless radio link. In 1993 the government began to allow individual companies their own dedicated links, which allowed work done in India to be transmitted abroad directly. Indian firms soon convinced their American customers that a satellite link was as reliable as a team of programmers working in the clients' office.

A joint EU-India group of scholars was formed on 23 November 2001 to further promote joint research and development. On 25 June 2002, India and the European Union agreed to bilateral cooperation in the field of science and technology. From 2017, India holds an Associate Member State status at CERN, while a joint India-EU Software Education and Development Center will be located in Bangalore.^[14]

In recent years there has been a boom in startups in India across all industries but especially the Information Technology sector. This boom is in part due to various start up schemes such as the Start Up India Scheme and T-Hub. Schemes like this provide resources to support the creation of new startups in hopes to stimulate the economy and put India at the forefront of innovation across all sectors. While the scheme has supported and incubated many companies and helped them succeed, there has been a lack of active support for ST and SCs in the action plans. This reflects a trend across the Information Technology sector as a whole with marginalized communities having a harder time breaking into this booming industry.

Indian IT revenues

In the contemporary world economy, India is the largest exporter of IT. The contribution of the IT sector in India's GDP rose from 1.2% in 1998 to 10% in 2019.^[15] Exports dominate the Indian IT industry and constitute about 79% of the industry's total revenue. However, the domestic market is also significant, with robust revenue growth.^[16]

The industry's share of total Indian exports (merchandise plus services) increased from less than 4% in FY1998 to about 25% in FY2012. The technologically-inclined services sector in India accounts for 40% of the country's GDP and 30% of export earnings as of 2006, while employing only 25% of its workforce, according to Sharma (2006). According to Gartner, the "Top Five Indian IT Services Providers" are Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and HCL Technologies.^[17]

The IT and BPM industry's revenue is estimated at US$194 billion in FY 2021, an increase of 2.3% YoY.^[3] The domestic revenue of the IT industry is estimated at US$45 billion and export revenue is estimated at US$150 billion in FY 2021.^[3] The IT industry employed almost 2.8 million employees in FY 2021.^[18] The IT–BPM sector overall employs 5.4 million people as of March 2023.^[19][20]

In 2022, companies within the sector faced significant employee attrition and intense competition in hirings.^[21] Indian IT revenues grow fastest in a decade to $227 billion in COVID-19 pandemic -hit FY22. NASSCOM in its Strategic Review predicted that the IT industry can achieve the ambitious target of being a US$ 350 billion by FY26 growing at a rate of 11-14 per cent.^{[citation needed]}

State wise revenue in IT exports

Below is the State wise list of revenue in IT exports as of FY2023.^[22][23][24]

Largest Indian IT companies based on market capitalisation

Top IT services companies in India in 2022 by market capitalization.^{[25][26][27][28][29]} In September 2021, TCS recorded a market capitalisation of US$ 200 billion, making it the first Indian IT tech company to do so.^[30][31][32] On 24 August 2021, Infosys became the fourth Indian company to reach $100 billion in market capitalization.^[33][34]

Largest Indian IT companies in India based on revenue

Top IT services companies in India in 2022 by revenue.^[35][36]

Major information technology hubs

Bangalore

Bangalore is a global technology hub and is India's biggest tech hub.^[37] As of fiscal 2016–17, Bangalore accounted for 38% of total IT exports from India worth $45 billion, employing 10 lakh people directly and 30 lakh indirectly.^[38] The city is known as the "Silicon Valley of India".^[39][40]

Bangalore is also known as the "startup capital of India"; the city is home to 44 percent of all Indian unicorn startup companies as of 2020.^[41]

Hyderabad

Hyderabad – known for the HITEC City or Cyberabad – is India's second largest information technology exporter and a major global IT hub, and the largest bioinformatics hub in India.^[42][43] Hyderabad has emerged as the second largest city in the country for software exports pipping competitors Chennai and Pune.^[44][45][46]

Chennai

As of 2018^[update], Chennai is India's third-largest exporter of information technology (IT) after Bangalore and Hyderabad and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.^[47][48] TIDEL Park in Chennai was billed as Asia's largest IT park when it was built.^[49][50][48]

Kolkata

Kolkata (Greater) is one of the major and the biggest IT hub of East India. Most of the IT parks and offices are located at New Town and Bidhannagar. Salt Lake Electronics Complex in Bidhannagar Salt Lake Sector-V is India's first fully integrated Electronics Complex.^[51] As of 2020, The IT sector employs more than 200,000 people directly. Total export from IT sector was estimated at ₹25,918 crore in 2021-22.^[52] In 2022, Kolkata generated 20,000 direct jobs in just 6 months, which is a all-time high for IT industry in East India.^[53]

Pune

The Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Hinjawadi is a ₹60,000 crore (US$8.9 billion) project by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC).^[54][55] The IT Park encompasses an area of about 2,800 acres (11 km²) and is home to over 800 IT companies of all sizes.^[56]

Delhi NCR

Delhi NCR is one of the major IT hub in India. Cities in NCR like Gurgaon and Noida have several companies that serves the local and global markets who take help from these IT hubs.^[57]

IT-BPM Employees headcount Location wise

Controversies

The Indian IT-BPM industry has the highest employee attrition rate.^{[58][59][60][61][62]} In recent years, the industry has seen a surge in resignations at all levels.^[58][60][62] As a global outsourcing hub, the Indian IT industry benefits from a lower cost of living and the consequent cheaper labor.^[63][64]

In the last decade most of the IT companies developed indigenous R&D and innovation capabilities to develop home grown IT products.^[65] As the IT–BPM sector evolves, many are concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) will drive significant automation and destroy jobs in the coming years.^[66][67]

In recent years, many IT workers use forged experience certificates to gain entry into the Indian IT industry.^{[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75]} These fake documents are provided by consultancies that are mainly operating out of Hyderabad and Bangalore.^[68][69][70] IT professionals frequently use proxy interviews to clear interviews, but the majority of the phoney candidates are rejected during the interview round.^[76]

A 2017 study of technical support scams published at the NDSS Symposium found that, of the tech support scams in which the IPs involved could be geolocated, 85% could be traced to locations in India.^[77] Indian call centres are infamous for defrauding customers from the US and Europe.^{[78][79][80][81][82][83]} Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai are the main operating locations for these fraud call centres.^{[84][85][86][87]}