Today, the Reserve Bank released the data related to the 2020-21 round of its annual survey on exports of computer software and information technology enabled services. The survey collects details on India’s exports of software services {computer services and information technology enabled services (ITES)/business process outsourcing (BPO) services} as per type of activity, on-site/off-site nature of services, country of destination and four modes of supply. The survey schedule is given in the Annex.

For 2020-21 round of the survey, 6115 software export companies were contacted, of which 1815 companies responded, which included most of the large companies. The responding companies accounted for 86.5 per cent of the total software services exports² during the year (Table 1).

Highlights:

• India’s exports of software services (excluding exports through commercial presence) are estimated at US$ 133.7 billion during 2020-21, registering 4.0 per cent growth over the previous year (Table 2).

• Computer services and ITES contributed 65.3 per cent and 34.7 per cent, respectively, of the total software services exports (Table 2).

• BPO services were the dominant component of exports of IT enabled services (Table 3).

• Over half of the exports of software services were made by private limited companies (Table 4).

• The United States was the major destination for software exports accounting for 54.8 per cent; Europe had 30.1 per cent share, nearly half of which was in the UK (Table 5).

• The US dollar was the principal invoicing currency for software exports with 72.0 per cent share; Euro and Pound sterling together accounted for another 15.9 per cent (Table 6).

• The share of off-site mode of exports of software services has increased gradually to 87.1 per cent in 2020-21 from 80.1 per cent five years ago (Table 7).

• The share of mode-1 (cross-border supply) in India’s exports of software services increased further to 78.4 per cent in 2020-21: this share of mode-1 has been increasing over the years from 38.8 per cent in 2002-03 to 64.6 per cent in 2009-10 and further to 75.1 per cent in 2019-20, at the cost of the other three modes of delivery {viz., mode-2 (consumption abroad); mode-3 (commercial presence); and mode-4 (presence of natural persons)} (Table 8).

• Software exports by foreign affiliates through commercial presence, where the USA is a major destination, stood at US$ 14.6 billion in 2020-21 (Tables 9 and 10).

• Total exports of software services, including services delivered by foreign affiliates of Indian companies, recorded 2.1 per cent growth during 2020-21 and stood at US$ 148.3 billion (Table 8).

Ajit Prasad
Director  

Press Release: 2021-2022/893

¹ The previous data release in the series, covering 2019-20 survey round, was published on March 16, 2021 on the RBI website.

² Exports of relatively small non-responding companies were estimated as per the methodology are published in the article entitled ‘Survey on Computer Software and Information Technology Enabled Services Exports: 2016-17’ published in March 2018 issue of the RBI Bulletin.