Third-party software testing for mobile applications will boost the testing market in India. With

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companies planning to cut down on the cost and manpower, testing companies sees domestic market as an opportunity.

According to research firm IDC, the global software testing market is estimated at $13 billion of which India accounts for $1 billion.

Mukesh Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of QA InfoTech, said that the recession has proved to be a positive for testing firms in India.

“Indian companies have started realising the importance of independent third-party testing. Unlike the US market, Indian companies do not carry out independent testing, but this trend is changing now as companies have started focusing on their core job and outsourcing it to testing companies,” he said.

At present there are around four to five independent software companies in India that includes AppLabs, Virtusa, QA InfoTech and Maveric Systems.

“E-learning and mobile value added services (VAS) are the growing verticals for software testing. At present, the inflow of work from domestic companies is not significant, but this is growing. We have received communication from some of the large IT companies on testing, which is a positive sign. But a software testing company cannot sustain depending on the domestic market,” he said.

India is becoming one of the leading destinations for offshore testing, with market opportunities for the offshore software testing companies expected to rise to $8 billion by 2008 - 2009.

However, talent remains to be the major challenge for testing companies.

According to Gartner, India will require around 18,000 testing professionals every year over the next three years to meet the demand of the software testing market. IT services and solutions company, L&T Infotech have shown interest is acquiring a testing company.