Mirroring global economic trends, the Indian IT industry is likely to show muted growth in 2023 and the first half of 2024, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan said during a press meet here on Monday.
“IT industry is a reflection of the global economy and global economy is slowing down, and hence the IT industry will slow down,” he reasoned, however adding that it is not a permanent slowdown.
According to IT industry body Nasscom, the Indian technology sector is set to grow 8.4 per cent in FY 2023 to reach $245 billion in size. This reflects an over 2 per cent revenue growth plunge on a year-on-year basis.
Gopalakrishnan further agreed that the sector which employs a 50 lakh-plus workforce has indeed seen some tightening, which is likely to continue in the near term.
“In the short term, yes muted growth, the addition of jobs may be again muted, recruitment may be muted,” he noted.
He however, expressed a bullish outlook on the prospects of the Indian IT industry in the medium to long term.
“In the medium to long term, I feel that India has a significant lead over any part of the world in terms of job growth, in terms of the industry itself growing,” he stressed.
The industry continues to grow and recruit even today, while remaining highly profitable with significant cash on balance sheets and almost zero debt, he added.
Speaking on the prospects of the manufacturing sector during the media interaction, Volvo Group Managing Director (India) Kamal Bali said: “Almost $4 trillion of manufacturing is shifting from existing geographies to new geographies, which means India is going to be a very big beneficiary of this shift even if 20 per cent shift comes to India.”