AppLabs to beef up headcount by 50%

 

CLOSE on the heels of Mahindra Satyam, another Hyderabad-based information technology company, AppLabs, is looking to beef up employee headcount.
The $100 million firm, which claims to be the largest software testing and quality management company in the world, is planning to increase staff strength by 50 per cent of its current workforce, chairman Sashi Reddi told Financial Chronicle.

"Markets have recovered strongly. We are seeing good traction in the US. We plan to hire about 1,000 people to service this growing demand in the coming one year," Reddi says. 60 per cent of the new employees are expected to be freshers.

AppLabs currently employs more than 2,000 employees around the world.
Of this, 1,650 work out of its global delivery centre based in Hyderabad. The company is looking to expand its facility in the city by investing Rs 12 crore.

Reddi says AppLabs would continue to focus on the US market, notwithstanding the hue and cry against outsourcing in that country.
The region currently contributes more than 60 per cent of company's turnover.

"Given the current size of our company, we cannot afford to shift our focus on too many markets. Once we have reached our desired levels of growth, we may think of expanding into other geographies," Reddi says.

The increase in US visa fees would raise costs for the company but would not impact the bottomline to a great extent, he contends.

Recently, the company had announced that it was planning to buy a US-based company for about $50 mil lion. Till date, it has ac quired Keylabs for $7 mil lion in 2005, IS Integra tion for $37 million in 2006 and ValueMinds for an undisclosed sum last month.

The global softwa re testing market is estimated to be around $6 billion and is growing at a rate of 20 per cent, which is far higher than the growth of general IT services market.