But specifically to India? There are many other countries with low income and robust education for CS and reasonable English skill. Eastern Europe for example.
Maybe all the strong Eastern European SWEs head to Western Europe for the higher pay?
Let's also not forget, India is a massive and growing market in its own right. Literally the 4th-largest economy in the world, soon to be 3rd. It's like China at the turn of the century.
India has a (very) low base effect so it's absolute GDP growth is high. But it is growing much slower than China at the same point. Currently India is growing at about 6-7%, at the same GDP per capita China was growing at ~12%. If growth doesn't slow down, it'll take ~30 years to reach where China is now. There are lots of structural problems about the economy, and growth will likely be uneven and slower in the future.
But it is not a great place for these firms because disposable income is so low. For example, the US generates the most revenue per user for Google because it has a really high income. India is unlikely to make any significant part of tech firms revenue for a long time.
> it'll take ~30 years to reach where China is now
And it's been 25 years since the turn of the century. So I was approximately correct.
> There are lots of structural problems about the economy, and growth will likely be uneven and slower in the future.
It could be better than expected, or it could be worse. Predictions are hard, especially about the future.
> But it is not a great place for these firms because disposable income is so low
That matters for advertising revenue. A $30m contract for cloud services is still a $30m contract. And in any case, software is famously high-margin. Low revenue per user often isn't a problem if you have a lot of users. They're still profitable, just not wildly profitable.
> the US generates the most revenue per user for Google because it has a really high income
It's also saturated. The market demands growth.
Even though India will be relatively poor per-capita, in absolute terms it will be a bigger economy than Japan or Germany in the next 5 years (it's already bigger than one of them). Would any serious multinational company ignore the Japanese or German markets or deem them irrelevant to business?
Let's also not forget, India is a massive and growing market in its own right. Literally the 4th-largest economy in the world, soon to be 3rd. It's like China at the turn of the century.