Traditionally, China has been widely known for its world-class low cost manufacturing facilities. But the ongoing battle to make China a ‘hi-tech’ service-based economy has fuelled growth in the domestic software industry in recent years. Factors encouraging the software players (both domestic and foreign) to enter the Chinese software industry include government support, easy access to rapidly developing IT infrastructure, vast domestic potential and availability of low cost resources, says “China Software Market Forecast to 2012”, a new research report by RNCOS.

The Chinese software industry registered strong growth of more than 30% in 2008, indicating that the industry has not been impacted by the ongoing global economic crisis. The Chinese government’s continuous efforts in the form of IT investment, construction of software parks, and provision of quick approvals to secure international investment have largely driven the software industry amidst global downturn.

Besides, the rapid growth in IT spending among various industrial segments, including government, banking and manufacturing, has helped the industry to flourish and the same is likely to propel the domestic software industry over the forecasted period, anticipates the report. Considering these factors, the Chinese software industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 24% by 2012.

The industry’s potential is not only limited to the domestic consumption, foreign majors are also eying the industry as viable software outsourcing destination. In this regard, the report thoroughly studies the software industry in China by highlighting its driving factors and major challenges. It also provides an insight into the software industry by verticals and studies the key opportunity areas to enable clients align their strategies accordingly.

“China Software Market Forecast to 2012” studies the Chinese software industry by segregating it into revenue from various segments, including revenue from software products, systems Integration, embedded system software, software technology services and IC (Integrated Circuits) designing. It contains extensive research on each of these segments, covering the future growth potential along with rationale reasoning.

The report has given forecast on following segments:

- Software industry revenue
- Software products revenue
- Systems integration revenue
- Embedded system software revenue
- Software technology services revenue
- IC designing revenue
- Software exports
- IT spending across various vertical sectors like Government, Telecom Industry and Banking Industry.
- SaaS Market

The report also gives brief information on the major software parks in the country along with various incentives offered by the government if a software unit is being set in either of these parks.