Today, the Reserve Bank released the data¹ related to the 2022-23 round of its annual survey on computer software and information technology enabled services (ITES) exports. The survey² collects details on India’s exports of software services {computer services and ITES/business process outsourcing (BPO) services} as per type of activity, on-site/off-site nature of services, country of destination and modes of supply.

For 2022-23 round of the survey, 7,140 software export companies were contacted, of which 2,191 companies, including most of the large companies, responded. The participating companies together accounted for 89 per cent of total software services exports³ (Table 1).

Highlights:

• Exports of software services by Indian companies (excluding their sales through overseas commercial presence) increased by 18.4 per cent during 2022-23 to US$ 185.5 billion (Table 2).

• Computer services accounted for over two-thirds of total software services exports during the year; BPO services remained the main component of ITES exports (Tables 2 and 3).

• Private limited companies accounted for 56.1 per cent of the total exports of software services during the year though they recorded lower growth of 10.9 per cent when compared with 31.8 per cent rise in software exports by public limited companies (Table 4).

• Exports to all major regions improved during the year; the United States of America (USA) was the destination of nearly 55 per cent of India’s software exports followed by Europe (31 per cent), where the United Kingdom (UK) had a large share (Table 5).

• The US dollar was the dominant invoicing currency for India’s software exports, followed by the Euro, the Rupee and the Pound Sterling (Table 6).

• The share of off-site mode in total software exports rose to 90.1 per cent during 2022-23 from 88.8 per cent in the previous year and 84.3 per cent five years ago (Table 7).

• In terms of modes of supplying software services, the share of cross-border supply increased to 83.3 per cent (80.9 per cent in the previous year) at the cost of presence of natural persons and commercial presence modes of delivery (Table 8).

• Total exports of software services, including services delivered by foreign affiliates of Indian companies, increased by 16.7 per cent during 2022-23 to US$ 200.6 billion; local software business by such affiliates amounted to US$ 15.1 billion during the year, with the USA and the UK remaining the major destinations (Tables 9 and 10).

Ajit Prasad           
Director (Communications)

Press Release: 2023-2024/1092

¹ The previous data release in the series, covering 2021-22 survey round, was published on September 08, 2022 on the RBI website.

² The survey schedule is given in the Annex.

³ Exports of relatively small non-responding companies have been estimated as per the methodology published in the article titled ‘Survey on Computer Software and Information Technology Enabled Services Exports, 2016-17’ on March 2018 issue of the Reserve Bank of India Bulletin.