Satyam records 163% growth in Mideast revenues

Dubai: Satyam Computer Services, India's fourth largest software-services exporter, has registered an impressive 163 per cent year-on-year growth in the first quarter revenues from Middle East operations to Dh54 million. Out of this more than Dh50 million came from the Gulf, a top official said.

Virender Aggarwal, director and senior vice-president for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa, said: "As we are not allowed to make any forward looking statement, in terms of next year's revenues, if oil prices stay high and political environments favour us, we expect about 24 to 26 per cent growth. At this stage the only thing we can say is that the region will grow faster than the rest of the world.

Today, Satyam earns 60 per cent of its business from the US while 19.5 per cent comes from Europe and the rest of the world 20.5 per cent.

The Middle East alone contributes 2.5 per cent of its global revenues.

Expectations

"We are hopeful that 40 per cent volume currently coming from the Asia-Pacific will increase to 50 per cent shortly. We have seen some important US-based financial services clients cutting back spending on some projects due to a sluggish economy and expects the share of revenue from the US market to fall to about half of Satyam's total sales over the next few quarters," he said.

Aggarwal said the growth outlook for all the GCC countries stays very positive due to high oil prices and the company expects to grow along with these countries with its significant footprints and differentiated services.

The UAE, which is the biggest market in the region, contributes 38-39 per cent to the group's growth, followed by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar contributing 15 per cent each.

He said Abu Dhabi will be a key focus area this year. "We are setting up a separate entity. We plan to set up an IT back-office centre in Mexico and are also exploring setting up another centre in Chile or Uruguay shortly."

Satyam expects to clinch several deals in Asia and the Middle East over the next three months and plans to add more engineers in Malaysia and China.

"The outlook for deal closures is positive in the Middle East and also Australia," Aggarwal said.

"We expect to close a handful of these deals over the next three to four months. We are pursuing one deal in Singapore, two in Australia, two to three in India and five to six in the Middle East. The value of potential contracts in the Middle East range from $10 million to $20 million, while those in Australia are above $30 million," he said.

He said order bookings from the region crossed Dh100 million in the first quarter and the company expects about 26 per cent growth this year.

Aggarwal said record fuel prices had sparked an increase in government and corporate spending in the Middle East.