According to Rosstat, the monthly turnover of software developers in Russia began to decline in April and May after the peak in March. The figure reached 275.8 billion rubles (4.6 billion dollars) in March, while in April and May the index fell to 203.3 billion rubles (3.4 billion dollars) and to 187.1 billion rubles (3.1 billion dollars) respectively. The figure for May was 44% higher than that for May of 2021 and still higher than the turnover in January 2022 of 155.88 billion rubles (2.6 billion dollars) and February 2022 of 170.3 billion rubles (2.9 billion dollars).

According to Elena Nepochatova, Commercial Director of New Cloud Technologies, the revenue growth in March could have been due to the growth of “purchases of foreign software amid the reports about the imminent departure of foreign vendors”. In her opinion, a large-scale transition to Russian software “is just beginning”, as “companies and organizations are deploying test pilots of Russian products, and decisions on the purchase of one or another Russian software product will be made based on the results of the pilots”. Nepochatova also said that “the economic growth of the Russian IT industry can be expected in the next two or three years”, if the market in Russia does not follow the path of piracy.

A similar opinion was expressed by the experts of Kaspersky Lab, who believe that the March peak in the revenue of developers could be due to the “suspension of operations of many companies in Russia”. The company’s experts claimed that in the spring, during the process of switching to Russian solutions, “many companies began to test these solutions within the pilot projects”. At the same time, tests can last up to six months, and in some cases even longer.

Original in Russian