In a report that slams down critics of the future of IT industry in India, ET talks about how global IT companies including Facebook, Amazon, AMD, Xerox and Intuit have leased more than half a million sq. ft of office space between them in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Junglee.com, Amazon’s online retail arm in India went live this year and the company seems to have bigger plans for setting up camp in the country. The e-tailer has leased 4 lakh sq ft of office space that could potentially house more than 5,000 employees. Of this, 3 lakh sq ft have been leased in Bangalore’s World Trade Centre while a further 1 lakh sq. ft has been picked out in HITEC city, Hyderabad.
In November last year, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister, had announced that the government had allotted land to Amazon which would hire more than 3,000 people once facilities have been setup. Amazon, in an earlier statement had said "We are hiring in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, and will continue to grow our business in India".
Image Source: ET
Facebook has leased 40,000 sq ft of office space in Hyderabad which could potentially accommodate more than 500 employees. Other global IT companies including document management giant Xerox, chip maker AMD and software company Intuit have leased office space in these two cities. Xerox is looking to set up base with its Indian partners in a 2.5 lakh sq ft space in Bangalore while AMD has leased in excess of 1 lakh sq ft in Hyderabad.
Both Hyderabad and Bangalore are already home to some of the world’s top IT companies. HITEC City in Hyderabad hosts many IT Parks which have offices of the likes of Microsoft, Patni, Oracle, Dell, Virtusa, Accenture, IBM, Facebook, Verizon, Qualcomm and a string of other IT companies and outsourcing giants. Companies like HCL Tech, HP, Infosys, Mahindra Satyam, TCS and Wipro have offices in Electronic City, Bangalore.
India Inc. has been abuzz with news of hiring trends in the IT sector since the last few days. Surveys and reports about IT hiring in 2012-13 have been like mixed bag reviews. On one hand Wipro announced that it was not making any change to its hiring plans while on the other, Infosys delayed the start dates of some of the 28,000 graduates it hired from campuses last year.
There is little denying that global economies are struggling however with office leases and new deals, companies still seem to be betting big on India Inc in the long term.
An E&Y advisory told ET "For companies that believe in the long-term story of India, this is probably a very good time as you can get real estate and talent at relatively lower cost" Despite the anti-outsourcing buzz and falling global economies, despite mixed hiring outlooks and growth trends for India in 2012, companies with a plan are still making moves to capitalize on possible opportunities in India Inc.
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