The National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom), the trade body of the Indian information technology (IT) industry, has marginally lowered the export growth estimates of the sector to 12-14% for Fiscal Year 2016 when compared to the current fiscal’s range of 13-15%. Citing the global macro-economic challenges in terms of currency volatility and recession in Europe, Nasscom has projected that the IT-BPO exports would touch around $110-112 billion for FY 2016.

At the inauguration of the annual Nasscom leadership forum, president R Chandrasekaran said the concerns are mainly with regard to economic fluctuations in different economies. "The way Europe, Russia, Brazil and others, on which a lot of hope had been pinned on, is slowing down. If there is slowing down of the economy and degrowth in some countries like Europe, then there is less money available in the IT sector," he said.

Even for FY 2015, the exports from Indian IT industry, hit by currency volatility, is expected to reach only the lower end of the guidance. The exports in FY15 is expected to touch $98.5 billion - a growth of 12.3% in reported currency terms while in constant currency it is 13.1%.

Chandrasekaran added, "We have come to lower end of the guidance, but nevertheless, it is a phenomenal growth given the base. We are confident of meeting the 2020 target of $300-billion industry size."

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According to Nasscom, the global technology spending is expected to maintain growth in 2015.

The total industry size, which includes both hardware and e-commerce, is expected to aggregate at $146 billion for FY15 against the $130 billion in FY14. According to Nasscom, there is an uptick in high value added services like engineering services and product development whose revenue was nearly $20 billion.

For FY15, Nasscom has projected that the engineering Reasearch & Development services, product engineering and software to be some of the outperforming segments. The US, APAC, telecom, manufacturing and emerging verticals are some of the high growth areas.

The domestic IT market is expected to grow by 14% in US dollar terms to touch $48 billion for FY15. Nasscom said the stable government with a technology focused growth agenda is boosting technology adoption in the domestic market.

The industry, which accounts for 9.5% of the country’s GDP and 38% of the total exports, saw its employee base cross 3.5 million - an addition of 230 000 in FY 2015. This is besides the indirect employment of over 10 million.

According to the industry body, there is a need for diverse skill sets and vertical specialists driving greater lateral hiring. Nasscom vice-chairman BVR Mohan Reddy said that the biggest challenge for the industry is the skill set mismatch and they are working towards mitigating it.

Nasscom also highlighted the strides made by the startup community in India. There are 3,100 start-ups in India with over 800 being created every year. These are largely in the areas like internet of things, big data & analytics, augmented reality, cloud computing, health, hardware, education etc, it noted.