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Telecom. IT: Local software market reaches 8.2 billion euros in 2020
The software industry in Romania will grow by 12.5% in 2020, reaching a business volume of about 8.2 billion euros, according to estimates of KeysFin specialists.
However, the increase is more temperate than in 2019, when the sector recorded a business figure of 7.3 billion euros, 20% higher than in 2018 and over 69% reported to 2015.
The software industry in Romania remains in the top of key industries for the country's economy, the share of the whole IT&C sector in GDP being 6.1% in 2019 ad 7.1% by mid 2020.
In 2019, there were over 24,000 companies in the software field in Romania, 6.2% more than in 2018 and 38.9% more than in 2015, of which: 22,600 micro companies, 1,100 small companies, 328 medium size companies and 20 big companies. The biggest share of the business figure was generated by average companies, with 37.4% of total, followed by corporations with 25.7%, small companies with 19.8% and very small companies with17.1%. The software industry is one of the most balanced local industries in point of distributing the business figure per company types, the difference of maximum 20% between categories being relatively small in comparison with all key sectors in Romania.
Oracle Romania SRL continues to be the largest software company in Romania, with a business figure of over 200 million euros (2.7% of total). The top is completed by IBM Romania (over 197 million euros -2.6% of total), Ericsson Telecommunications Romania SRL (over 161.3 million euros, 2.2% of total), Bitdefender SRL (about 140.5 million euros) and Endava Romania SRL (about 135.5 million euros).
The ten largest companies in industry cumulated businesses of about 1.3 billion euros, representing 17.6% of total. In point of profitability, results are positive: net profit grew by 27.3% against 2018 and over 110% against 2015, reaching over 1 billion euros in 2019. Moreover, of the 24,000 companies analyzed, 16,000 (67%) had profit, about 6,000 (25%) had losses, while the rest had zero result in 2019.
The number of insolvencies dropped by 25% against 2018, to 56 insolvencies in 2019.
SAP Romania, with net profit of 36.4 million euros ranked first in the top of the most profitable companies in the field in 2019, lower than in 2018 when it exceeded 40 million euros (the drop was under 8% in the national currency). The 5 most profitable companies had in 2019 a cumulated net profit of 104.2 million euros, 9.7% of total.
According to the analysis, the number of employees in the software industry grew by 43.3% in the last 5 years, to 130,000 in 2019. However, according to 2020 Eurostat data, Romania ranks first in EU for the employee deficit in the field, the necessary number being a few tens of thousand specialists, according to professional associations. Certainly, the race of attracting employees in IT, especially the best ones, led to increasing the average cost per employee by 45% in the last 5 years and by 9% against 2018, to 25,500 euros in 2019.
The KeysFin analysis is based on annual financial data, not adjusted, aggregated, reported by companies to the Finance Ministry. All figures are expressed in euros and the exchange rate used was the official one reported by the National Bank of Romania.