Citing two global industry reports, Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) President Nora Terrado recently said that the Philippines is now considered one of five “mature locations” providing outsourced software services.

The PSIA president said that a report by the Everest Group “a business leader advisor on next generation global services” described the Philippines along with India, China, Poland and Brazil as “mature locations” for software services because each of the countries mentioned have more than 50 providers of software services.

Terrado cited several factors driving the growth of the Philippines’ outsourced software services sector, including major foreign market campaigns and a rapidly growing demand for outsourced software services. The influx of development and research is being driven by new digital platforms like smartphones and other handheld devices that are gaining market traction.

The PSIA president also mentioned a report by research firm Garner, which stated that the Philippines can still remain competitive against countries that offer software services like Vietnam, Argentina, Chile and Ukraine. The main reason is that these countries are facing challenges such as visa restrictions, low salaries, high rates of employee attrition, higher government scrutiny and more. According to Terrado, the Philippines continues to overcome these challenges and could emerge as one of the most viable destinations for outsourced software services.

Terrado also mentioned some trends in the global in the information technology outsourcing (ITO) sector that might benefit the Philippines’ software services industry, including increasing demand for more value-added services and increased bundling of services with more selections for different outsourcing needs.

Two new platforms driving the rapid growth of software development and service provisioning “cloud computing and mobile data” are also making it possible for software developers and applications providers to continue to flourish in the world’s outsourced software services industry.

The software services industry in the Philippines is seeing sustained, double digit growth. Last year, the sector generated US$993 million in total revenue, posted 37 % growth over the previous year, and remained one of the Philippines’ fastest growing outsourcing sectors, with manpower growth of nearly 50,000 full time employees.