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

07 August 2010

Dear Friends,

I would like to share with you the results of the 7th Annual Survey of the Russian Software Export Industry, conducted by the Russian Software Developers Association (RUSSOFT) in February – April 2010.

RUSSOFT is the leading association for providers of software development services and software products in Russia and it also includes several leading companies from Belarus and Ukraine
(together more than 70 companies).

In the course of this survey we collected more than 160 quality questionnaires in 2010, completed by our respondents among export-oriented software development companies, which is almost half as much as during any of our previous surveys. In addition to questionnaires, the RUSSOFT analysts gathered a significant amount of information from other sources, primarily reports of research agencies, official reports of the companies and media publications.

Our analysis is validated by consistent application of the same methodology that we have used for the past 7 years to survey respondents and to analyze the results of the polls, as well as by the knowledge and experience of Dmitry Zhelvitsky from ComputerWorld, our leading analyst of last four years. This report was edited by Andrey Terekhov, a recognized guru of Russian software development industry, Head of System Programming Chair at the Saint-Petersburg State University and CEO of Lanit-Terkom. The English translation of this report was provided by ABBYY Language Services which ensured its high quality.

As a result, we have a document that presents a clear picture of the state of the industry and highlights the main trends of its development.

The acute phase of the global economic crisis ended in 2009, and, by the end of last year, we even witnessed some signs of market recovery that continued at the beginning of 2010. This led to a quality change in the situation, so we felt it was important to analyze how the market was reacting to ongoing changes and make some assumptions about the future.

The Russian software export industry continued to grow in 2009. These exports were largely impacted by the sharp drop in the Russian IT market (according to IDC, this drop made up of 37%). However, even for their total turnover (including the Russian market), the revenue of exporters was reduced only by 5% while exports grew in general by 5% (up to $2.75 bln).

There was further growth in the software products segment (in 2009 for the first time its volume of sales exceeded $1 bln), the providers of software technology services preserved their share in the exports, and only the Russian development centers of foreign companies reduced the exports of their services. The geography of exports has expanded and shifted further to CIS countries and to the new Russian markets (South East Asia, Africa and Latin America).

The industry has changed its assessment of government policies. Now, it is more demanding and critical. There is an emerging trend to prepare the companies for the growth which is reflected in the desire to attract investment for development in 2010-2011.

I am confident that conclusions and forecasts provided in our report will help you to better understand the state of the industry so that your business can most effectively benefit from the advantages offered by Russian software developers.

I would like to thank all who took part in this survey and thus allowed us to prepare a comprehensive, valid and reliable source of information about the Russian software export industry.

Editor-in-chief of the 7th edition,
President of the RUSSOFT Association
Valentin Makarov

7-th Annual Survey of the Software Development Export Industry of Russia
PDF, 6 MB , in English
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