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

Dear colleagues,
Dear friends,

We are proud to introduce to you the results of the annual (by this time already the15th!) survey of the software development export industry of Russia which as ever has been conducted by the RUSSOFT Association.

In February-April 2018 we surveyed over 160 market players (it is a record throughout the entire period of survey!). Additionally, we studied various sources of information and received expert assessments from dozens of managers of software development companies.

Last year was marked by continuation of a certain growth of the Russian economy as well as by a remarkable increase of sales of Russian software companies not only abroad, but also on the domestic market. The deepening in the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the USA and new anti-Russian sanctions could not help increasing sales growth of Russian IT companies on the US and the EU mature markets, at the same time they created preconditions for strengthening the position of our industry in the developing markets where Russia proved to be capable of providing alternative solutions in the security sphere, de facto offering these countries “Digital sovereignty”.

The mechanism of state support of hi-tech, represented by the Russian Export Center remains in effect. The Program “Digital economy” is in progress. All these State support programs provide good prospects for the development of the software industry in Russia for next years to come.

The volume of foreign sales of software and of software development services of Russian companies grew by 19% and reached $8.8 billion.

Eight service companies were included in the Rating of 100 top service companies in the world (according to IAOP). Russian software vendors continued to strengthen their position in “Gartner magic quadrants” where success of our companies in the cyber security should be particularly noted.

Unfortunately, further prospects for growth of export to the USA will not depend on our companies themselves but on the development of the geopolitical situation. Still it is evident that there are prospects for growth in Europe, in Southeast Asia, in Latin America and in the Arab world.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank ToyOpinion for their long-standing efficient support of the study in gathering initial information as well as PROMT for the excellent translation of the report into English. Thanks to our colleagues – Alexander Kalinin from SibEDGE (association “Gorod IT”, Tomsk), and Maxim Semenkin from CodeInside, Penza, for helping gathering information in their cities, which raised the number of questionnaires filled out to a record level and made it possible to analyze the situation in the regions.

And certainly, I wish to give kind words of gratitude to our analyst Dmitry Zhelvitsky for his enormous work on gathering additional information, for preparing the report and for creating RUSSOFT ratings – of leading software companies and that of leading IT-universities.

We are very grateful to the Association of Computer and Information Technology Companies (AP KIT) and to our sponsors for continuous support of our study. I would also like to thank everyone who took part in the survey and who provided information about their companies.

With best personal feelings,
Valentin Makarov
president of RUSSOFT Association