Hardware exports are poised to reverse the declining trend of the past few years with a 7-8% growth this fiscal, a senior official of the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) said on Tuesday.
“We are seeing some revival… this will be reversal of the trend,” ESC Executive Director D.K. Sareen said during a media interaction on IndiaSoft 2019 international exhibition and conference scheduled to be held here on February 4-5.
New areas
The growth is coming on the back of traction for products in new areas, “specially in the areas of power electronics, UPS systems, electronic energy meters. These are new upcoming items of export from India,” he said, adding that these would drive growth in the next two to three years.
Hardware exports touched a peak of $7.2 billion a couple of years ago. Last year, they were around $6 billion, he said, attributing the decline to shutting down of large facilities such as those by Nokia for cellphone manufacturing in Chennai. On the prospects, Mr. Sareen said some larger players were likely to relocate their factories from China to India in the backdrop of the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.
“Once that happens, we can expect good growth from the hardware side also,” he said, pointing out how the low export base was a function of the level of ease of doing business and the perception about India being a difficult country to do business.
Earlier in the meeting, he said many of the companies moving out of China were going to Vietnam.
On IT and ITeS exports, Mr. Sareen expected them to grow 8-10% this fiscal.
The performance in the first two to three quarters had been up to expectations, he said, adding that the U.S. market remained the growth driver, notwithstanding the challenges pertaining to visa that Indian companies battled there.
“We have seen challenging times in our principal U.S. market. We are pretty much on track. Not to the extent we are talking about, anyway the target was revised. Nasscom had projected the software and services exports to grow 7-9% in 2018-19 to $137 billion. IT exports in 2017-18 were $126 billion,” he said.
IndiaSoft 2019 will bring over 500 foreign ICT buyers from 60 countries. Close to 250 Indian IT firms and over 20 foreign IT companies of various hues and sizes will display their products and solutions to the discerning buyers, said a release from ESC. “More and more foreign companies are showing interest in taking part in the show, because of its unique appeal and focus on small and medium IT segment,” said Nalin Kohli, Chairman of Indiasoft Organising Committee.
