Romania’s software industry to rise by 12.5% to EUR 8.2 bln in 2020

Romania's software industry will grow by some 12.5% in 2020 to reach an aggregate turnover of approximately EUR 8.2 billion, according to a KeysFin analysis.

The growth rate eased from 20% yoy in 2019, when the sector reached a turnover of 7.3 bln - 69% more than four years earlier, in 2015, the analysis reads.

However, official data from the National Statistics Institute (INS) show that the added value generated by the Information and Communication sector accelerated to +12.3% year-on-year in the first half of 2020, from a more moderate 8.1% yoy rise in 2019 (far from the 20% rise in revenues measured by KeysFin).

Irrespective of the metric used, the software remains one of the key industries for the country's economy, the share of the entire IT&C sector in total gross value added being 6.1% in 2019 and 7.9% in the first half of 2020.

The number of employees in the software industry has increased by 43.3% in the last five years, to 130,000 in 2019.

The tight labor market led to an increase in the average cost per employee by almost 45% over the last five years and by 9% compared to 2018, to EUR 25,500 in 2019.

In 2019, over 24,000 software companies were active in Romania, 6.2% more than in 2018 and 38.9% more than in 2015. Of these, 22,600 were micro-companies, 1,100 were small companies, 328 medium companies, and 20 large companies.

The largest share of turnover was generated by medium-sized companies, with 37.4% of the total, followed by corporations with 25.7%, small companies with 19.8%, and micro-enterprises with 17.1%.

The ten largest companies in the industry accumulated a turnover of approximately EUR 1.3 billion, representing 17.6% of the total.

The largest software company in Romania remains Oracle Romania, with a turnover of over EUR 200 mln (2.7% of the total), followed by IBM Romania (EUR 197 mln - 2.6% of the total), Ericsson Telecommunications Romania (EUR 161 mln, 2.2% of the total), Bitdefender (EUR 140 mln), and Endava Romania (EUR 135 mln).

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