India was one of the fastest growing geographies for IBM in 2017, continuing a trend that started a few years ago. IBM India’s revenue grew by 8.6% in reported currency (5% in constant currency) in the year.
Only Mexico and Spain grew faster among the major countries. China declined by 10% in constant currency. Many other geographies also declined, including the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. India has been called out during quarterly earnings calls over the past two-three years as one of the best-performing markets.
In 2016, IBM India grew by 5.2% in reported currency and 10% in constant currency (which adjusts for currency fluctuations). The company’s good performance here has come when globally it shrank.
After hitting a peak revenue of $107 billion in 2011, IBM has steadily declined, and touched $79 billion last year, as it sought to readjust to the dramatic changes in the technology world by getting rid of much of its hardware businesses, and shifting to cloud-based software platforms.
In India though, revenue rose, sometimes sharply. It was Rs 23,005 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 32,325 crore, or approximately $5 billion, in 2016-17. That means India accounts for over 6% of IBM’s revenue. In export IT services, India is perhaps IBM’s biggest operation.
India has IBM’s biggest employee base — an estimated 1,30,000 of the overall 3,80,000. And a good proportion of them are in the IT services business that competes with those like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and Accenture.
