Bangalore: Global IT research and advisory firm, Gartner Inc, on July 8 said India has the potential to generate $ 13.8 billion from offshore BPO exports in 2007.

"For the current year, India's revenue from offshore BPO will grow from slightly under USD one billion in 2002 to USD 1.2 billion in 2003 and will represent 66 per cent of the global offshore BPO market. This will be supplemented by significant additional revenue from local company operations and US firms setting up their own delivery centres out of India," Gartner said in a statement.

It said while offshore BPO was growing, it was still an immature market.

"Gartner conducted a survey in April 2003 with 250 US clients of BPO which showed that one per cent of those enterprises are currently outsourcing BPO services and that 19 per cent are considering outsourcing processes offshore within the next two years," it said.

"However, over one-third of companies with over 1,000 employees obtain offshore BPO services from BPO providers headquartered in the United States," Gartner IT services group principal analyst Debashish Sinha said, adding "the use of outsourcing is expected to grow as the supply base matures and companies are more comfortable working with external providers based in offshore locations."

PTI