India continues to be IBM`s fastest growing country globally

Bangalore: IBM recorded a growth of 37 per cent year-on-year in 2006, the growth being led by servers, storage, software and services, while IBM Daksh has grown 200 per cent in the last three years, and it now has 20,000 employees.

According to Shanker Annaswamy, regional general manager, IBM India / South Asia, "IBM has seen more than 30 per cent year-on-year growth in India in the last four years. The market has grown 14-15 per cent. We have grown more than twice the market."

He said the company's headcount in India, has grown 38 per cent, from 38,500 in 2005 to 53,000 as on January this year. "IBM is the biggest MNC software exporter in India," he said.

On the company's plans for 2007, Annaswamy said investments in education would remain a key focus. "We will extend the KidSmart programme and university relations initiatives across India, and create unique opportunities for our employees to contribute to social causes through volunteer and grants programmes," he added.

IBM India said the company imparted training on open standards based technologies to more than 80,000 students in over 745 colleges in India during 2006. Besides, its "great mind challenge" saw participation from over 700 colleges involving 21,000 students and 3,900 faculty from 24 states.

The company said in March this year, it will host its Global Innovation Outlook (GIO) 3.0 summit in Mumbai, which would focus on identifying emerging business, technology and social trends that will lead to thought leadership and collaborative commercial opportunities for IBM, its clients and its partners.