India's software market revenues to cross $8.2 bn by 2021-end: IDC

The software market in India is estimated to surpass USD 8.2 billion by the end of the calendar year 2021, according to research firm IDC.

India software market was pegged at USD 4 billion in the first half of 2021, registering a growth of 15.9 per cent year-over-year (YoY), as per IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker 1H21 (January-June) report.

India accounted for a share of 18.3 per cent of the overall Asia-Pacific excluding Japan and China (APeJC) region software market during the January-June 2021 period, it added.

Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP maintained their leadership position in the India market during the first half of the year.

"Indian enterprises are continuing their digital transformation initiatives with a clear focus on scalable, secure and agile frameworks. They ramped up investments on cloud for scalability, AI to leverage data accurately and serve the clients more efficiently, and security to protect their network and systems with greater emphasis on SASE and Zero Trust frameworks, identity management solutions, among others," IDC India Associate Market Analyst Hemanth Gudiwada said.

He added that as a result, the corresponding software markets are experiencing accelerated growth, and the growth in these markets is expected to continue for the next couple of quarters.

"Tech providers are continuing to invest in India to fully utilise the opportunity and explore untapped potential across Indian enterprises, he said.

IDC classifies the software market into three primary categories: applications, application development and deployment (AD&D), and systems infrastructure (SI) software.

Applications contributed 60.9 per cent to the overall market revenue, followed by AD&D and SI software with shares of 21 per cent and 18.1 per cent, respectively, in the first half of 2021. IDC estimates India's overall software market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 per cent during 20202025.

Cloud has become a critical element of enterprises and digital strategy, with cloud migration becoming a priority. IDC estimates the contribution of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) markets to the overall software market to increase from 37.1 per cent in 2020 to 59 per cent in 2025, growing with a CAGR of 25.1 per cent with more emphasis on PaaS solutions.

IDC expects acceleration in demand for technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) software, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, conferencing and collaborative applications, IT service management (ITSM) software, digital commerce applications, among others.

IDC said as policies regarding data protection and data residency have become clearer, Indian enterprises will relook at their existing compliance frameworks and rework to align with the latest policies.

As a result, data security and privacy compliance solutions will continue to be a top technology investment priority. Cloud management, advanced analytics, customer experience, and security will continue to be an important technology area focus for companies focusing on digital strategy, it added.

India software market continued to display the strongest growth trajectory with the highest growth across the APeJC region, IDC India Senior Research Manager for Software and IT Services Shweta Baidya said, adding that the pent-up demand culminated in a sharp spike in the market growth during the first half of 2021 compared to 2020.

"Most of the enterprises have already reached the pre-pandemic normalcy levels, while some of the organisations expect operations to normalise by the end of 2021 or the first half of 2022. Collaborative applications, AI platforms, system and service management, and security witnessed the strongest growth during the period due to the adoption of cloud-based solutions," Baidya added.

Software vendors have been re-aligning their portfolios and offerings to cater to the evolving requirements of their clients. There is a strong push towards solutions that are agile, scalable, and secure, and enterprises are clearly prioritising vendors with platform offerings over point solutions, Baidya noted.