IT sector to be hit if conditions in US, Europe worsen:Infosys

"....if it (poor economic conditions in US and Europe) becomes worse, then we will see a significant slowdown (here)," Infosys Executive Co Chairman S Gopalakrishnan said at a CII event here when asked about the impact of the current crisis in Europe and the US on Indian IT industry.

Stating that India would be impacted as it was part of global economy, Gopalakrishnan said there was some impact on Indian IT industry but it was not as bad as it was in 2008.

"There is some impact (of slowdown in Europe and US) but it is not as bad as it was in 2008. I hope it stays like this and does not become worse," he said.

However, he said India, at present, was better off vis- as-vis other global economies.
"Six per cent of growth (of India) is not bad when the rate of growth in other economies is zero or 1 per cent and some are facing recession. We are better off in that way," he said.

On the impact of 2008 recession on Infosys’ growth, Gopalakrishnan said the company's growth in 2007 was 35 per cent which fell to 11 per cent in 2008 and then 3 per cent in 2009. However, in 2010, it grew by 26 per cent.

Infosys though cut expenditure in short-term, it continued to invest in human resources by hiring more people for long term to deal with the slowdown, he said.

He further said the company was looking at investing in Intellectual Properties and product solutions to offer variety of technology solutions to achieve higher growth.

Asking the industry to be innovative and imaginative in their projects, Gopalkrishnan said it was very feasible for Indian IT industry to achieve a target of USD 220 billion by 2020 on the back of new innovations coming up in IT sector.

"It is very much feasible that the size of IT industry could grow from USD 65 billion to 220 billion in next 8-10 years. There is still innovation in IT sector like cloud computing, mobile applications etc," he said.

He said Infosys gets 97 per cent of turnover from export markets while rest from domestic market. “We are investing in domestic market and government is also investing in this sector. There is an opportunity,” he said.

India’s total domestic IT industry market is USD 17 billion against global size of USD 1 trillion.

In reply to a question, he said, the company would look at the possibility of investing in North India.In Chandigarh, it has an employee strength of 5,700.