Satyam to expand South African operations

Satyam Computer Services, a global consulting and information technology services provider, is targeting a 75 per cent year-on-year growth in revenues in South Africa.

Hyderabad-based company may generate about $12 million revenues during the current financial year from its South African operations against $4 million last year.

According to Virender Aggarwal, Satyam's director and senior vice-president of Asia-Pacific, the company is recruiting 8-10 persons every month at its two offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town and may hire 200 local technical graduates by March 2008.

The company has so far trained 50 South African technical graduates and deployed 20 of them in the two offices. "In the next two to three years, we plan to achieve a leadership position in South Africa amongst our Indian peers," he said.

Satyam, according to Aggarwal, had also explored BPO opportunities in South Africa but has not finalised the plans.

The IT spend in South Africa is at $30 billion, of which IT services account for $10 billion. The country accounts for 60 per cent of the IT market in the African continent and was registering a 20 per cent annual growth in IT spends.