VietNamNet Bridge – Over the past ten years, Vietnam continued to jump in the ranking in the IT field. Especially, the nation has become a popular brand in software outsourcing for export. Vietnamese business has been listed among the global leading 500 software companies.

In the span of ten years, Vietnamese software companies have emerged from just sitting on the sidelines to industry global leaders with the nation now highly regarded as a world top ten exporter of IT and related services.

Vietnam has now surpassed India to become the second-largest software outsourcer to Japan, trailing China, and has ascended to a global leadership position in the industry, a representative from the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) recently revealed.

The representative added that in 2014, the nation’s software companies also witnessed impressive growth apart from the Japanese market boosting revenues to over US$27 billion, which continued the upward trend from 2013.

According to a report from Tholons –  the leading full-service Strategic Advisory firm for Global Outsourcing and Investments –  HCM City and Hanoi ranked 17th and 22nd among the most attractive cities in the world for the IT industry in 2014.

The results of a recent market survey of 40 Vietnamese IT companies for the period 2012-2013, showed those that those who worked for the Japanese market during the period achieved high growth of 30-50%, even as high as 200%.

A representative from FPT Software, a leading Vietnamese IT firm, confirmed that the company witnessed strong growth in important markets such as the US, Europe, Japan and Singapore in 2014 in addition to Japan shifting a significant amount of work from India and China to it.

Last year, the Japanese market brought huge revenues to FPT software in the field and contributed to more than 50% of the company’s total revenue, the representative said.

FPT also made inroads into the US market closing a deal with DIRECTV – an American direct-broadcast satellite service provider. Last year, FPT software’s revenues from the US market grew 39% to nearly US$40 million.

FPT software has been put in charge of developing advanced technologies for broadcasting services that DIRECTTV provides on a global scale.

The representative said FPT this year would expand cooperation with DIRECTV and recruit an additional 300 IT engineers that have experience in Java technology, Big Data, IOS and Android to work on the project.

Last year, FPT Software became Vietnam’s first IT Company to have conducted M & A deals in the electricity sector, opening up opportunities in the EU market with dozens of foreign customers. The deal introduced a new business model ‘Best shore’ which was a combination between ‘Nearshore’ and ‘Offshore’.

This means that businesses can use human resources at home (offshore) and abroad (nearshore) to provide customers with high quality and timely services. Last year, the company’s revenue in the EU market increased twofold to nearly US$20 million.

In 2014, FPT Software realised revenue of VND2,900 billion from foreign markets, experiencing an impressive growth rate of 35% compared to 2013. This year, the company has targeted a growth of 32% in revenue. Moreover, it will make some important strategic moves in a number of major markets.

VOV