In the estimate of the Russian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, the scale of the Russian IT market went up by 17.3% in 2006 to reach 361.5 billion rubles ($14 billion) in value terms. Both the government and private investors are pumping huge amounts of money into the branch. If its growth rates remain the same, by 2010 the turnovers of IT companies will increase three times over the current level.
The Russian government has been taking good care of its IT industry. IDC, world software market analysts, estimate that in 2006 IT investment reached $11.9 billion, and the contribution of foreign companies to this sum amounted to more than $4 billion. These sums are spent on the construction of technoparks which focus on innovations and IT in seven Russian regions. In the next four years, the government will allocate 8 billion rubles ($309 million) on their development; all in all it is planning to spend about 20 billion rubles ($772 million) to this end. Private companies have put eight times more money than the government into techoparks.
Both expect handsome return on this huge investment. Russian Minister of Information Technologies and Communications Leonid Reiman predicts that by 2010 the domestic IT market will grow three-fold compared to 2006 to reach up to $40 billion. IT exports should grow from the current $1.5 billion to $10 billion.
A joint study by the Russoft association of exporters and Outsourcing-Russia.com shows that software is one of the most dynamically developing sectors in the Russian IT market. Programmers amount to more than one fifth of the IT market turnover. In the past few years, Russian software exports have been growing by 30%-50% every year. In 2006, these exports went up by 53.8% to reach $1.495 billion.
In the estimate of the NeoIT consulting company, at the world market of software exports, Russia ranks third after India and China. Russoft experts believe that credit for this goes to high-tech software that only Russian programmers can write. Quite often, in Western software companies Russian programmers write the most challenging parts of the product, which is then produced under a famous international brand. Russian companies also produce software for export. Russian anti-virus software and programs for the optical recognition of texts and faces are some of the best in the world.
Russian software producers are actively trading on the domestic market. In the IDC estimate, the share of hardware on the IT market is gradually going down. Today, software sales and services account for 31.6% of the whole market.
Experts predict that the software market will be going up at a rate of 20%-30% a year until 2009. No wonder famous foreign players have been drawn by such prospects. World software leaders have been on the Russian market for several years now. The demand for their produce grows annually by 3%-4% in industrialized countries, whereas in Russia they can increase sales 1.5 times a year without much effort.
Experts agree that the Russian software market would be even more attractive if it were not for piracy. The share of counterfeit and stolen software remains unacceptably high. Judging by the latest IDC/BSA (Business Software Alliance) report, in 2006 the level of software piracy in Russia went down to 80%. This share was 72.1% in the corporate market and 86.9% in the private sector. Russians still prefer to buy counterfeit disks because of the high prices on licensed products. Last year, piracy cost software companies $2.2 billion.
However, experts admit that getting ready for the WTO entry the Russian authorities have stepped up their efforts to suppress software piracy. In the last few years, the share of counterfeit software has been steadily dropping by 4%-5% a year. Last year, the number of criminal cases involving violations of intellectual property rights went up by 3.5 times. On January 1, 2008 Russia will enact new copyright laws (the Criminal Code's Part 4) that not only fully conform to world standards but even surpass them. The piracy software supply is also dwindling. Almost half of new computers sold in Russia are supplied with licensed software. Experts believe that a reduction in the share of counterfeit software by 10% by 2010 will create up to 34,000 well-paid jobs for programmers, increase budget revenues by $832 million and increase profits by $23.5 billion a year.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
