New Delhi, July 19 (IANS): The Indian IT industry managed to limit the impact of global recession last fiscal and maintain the growth momentum, albeit lower than that in the boom times, says tech publisher Dataquest.

"Export firms did better in recession-hit developed markets than those whose business is limited to the Indian market," Dataquest editor Prasanto K. Roy said.

Though the business of top 20 firms led by Indian IT bellwethers TCS, Infosys and Wipro, and multinationals such as HP and IBM, grew by an average 19 percent, seven of these posted single-digit revenue growth.

"Overall, the top 20 Indian software and hardware firms reported a combined revenue of Rs.183,621 crore (Rs.1.84 trillion/$39.52 billion) in 2009, compared to Rs.149,250 crore (Rs.1.49 trillion/$32.12 billion) in 2008," Roy said, citing findings of a survey.

Among the seven, four are multinational subsidiaries - Microsoft India, which grew a mere one percent year-on-year to Rs.32.98 billion (Rs.3,298 crore); HP India up two percent to Rs.157.63 billion (Rs.15,763 crore), Oracle three percent to Rs.59.62 billion (Rs.5,962 crore) and Cisco by four percent to Rs.60.84 billion (Rs.6,084 crore).

"One of the reasons for export-driven firms maintaining the growth is because of increasing IT outsourcing in a downturn to keep costs flexible. In the domestic market too, global firms such as IBM and Wipro fared very well," Roy averred.

Among the top 20 firms, eight firms grew fastest despite slowdown and negative sentiment in the market.

These include Mphasis, with revenues increasing 69 percent to Rs.31.73 billion (Rs.3,173 crore); HCL Infosystems, up 60 percent to Rs.80.89 billion (Rs.8,089 crore) and Cognizant Technologies, up 49 percent to Rs.94.10 billion (Rs.9,410 crore).

The IT bellwethers also posted healthy growth rates. TCS was up 22 percent to Rs.25,895 crore; Infosys, up 31 percent to Rs.20,392 crore, and Wipro up 41 percent to Rs.23,882 crore.

Multinationals such as SAP India grew 33 percent to Rs.4,320 crore, Dell India by 32 percent to Rs.4,266 crore, IBM India by 19 percent to Rs.12,048 crore and Accenture by 16 percent to Rs.4,400 crore.

With a decline of 18 percent in its growth, hardware firm Lenovo failed to make it to the top 20 club. Korean major Samsung also saw growth falling 40 percent to Rs,1,200 crore from Rs.2,014 crore.

Export revenues do not include that of business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

Scam-tainted Satyam Computer Services has been left out of the top 20, as its financial performance came under cloud following the Rs.78-billion (Rs.7,800-crore) accounting fraud by founder-chairman B. Ramalinga Raju.

The Dataquest survey findings are lower than the projections made by the IT industry's representative body -- National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) -- for 2009-10.

With the industry's annual growth rate dipping to 16-17 percent from about 30 percent in 2004-2008, the aggregate revenues was estimated to be $60 billion, including export revenue of $47 billion.

In view of the prevailing uncertainty, Nasscom has taken a two-year view to factor in the volatile environment and estimated that the IT industry would grow at 15 percent to achieve export revenue of $60-62 billion by 2010-11.