12-th Annual Survey of the Software Development Export Industry of Russia

Dear colleagues!
Dear friends!

I have particular honor to introduce to you results of the annual (this time already 12th) survey of the software development export industry in Russia. The research was conducted by RUSSOFT Association from February to April 2015.

More than 120 market players were interrogated within the research, additionally a wide range of sources of information were studied, expert judgments were received from dozens of CEOs of software development companies.

The last 2014 year passed within the climate of marked aggravation of the world geopolitical situation due to events in Ukraine that eventually resulted in adoption of economic sanctions against Russia by the United States and by the European Union. And the end of the year was marked by fall in oil prices and by a corresponding ruble’s decline against leading world currencies.

Negative factors had an impact on growth rate in sales of software and of development services offered by Russian software industry which decreased from 17% in 2013 to 11% in 2014. At the same time, devaluation of national currency added to marketability of Russian industry in the global market. According to forecasts of our respondents, in 2015 the volume of foreign sales of Russian companies will amount to $7 billion with enhancing growth rate to 16%.

Unfortunately, prospects for export growth in no small measure will depend not on companies themselves but on political developments. Russian companies are feeling the appearance of political barriers although typical only for clients who lack experience in working with Russia.

Taking the opportunity, I would like to thank ConrmIT and Toy Opinion for their effective information collection, and also would like to express gratitude to PROMT for its excellent translation of the report into English. Special thanks to HeadHunter for submission into our report of their internal review of labor market situation in IT area.

Also I would like to express profound gratitude to Andrey Terekhov, professor of St. Petersburg State University, for his traditionally outstanding work of editing this report.

And certainly, I wish to express kind words to our analyst Dmitry Zhelvitsky for his arduous
efforts for collection of complementary information and for his analytical works.

We are very grateful to the Russian Venture Company and to the Association of Computer and Information Technology Companies (APKIT), also to other our sponsors for financial support in conductance of research.

Many thanks to all survey participants who provided information on their companies!

Best regards,
Valentin Makarov
Executive Editor
RUSSOFT Association, President