Advertisment

Altair expects big lift-off from aerospace segment

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update

BANGALORE: After witnessing significant growth from the automotive sector in India, product design software maker Altair Engineering, Inc. expects similar demand from India's emerging aerospace sector.

Advertisment

Nelson Dias, MD, Altair Engineering India, said that the company had won clients like ISRO satellite center, GE Aircraft and Honeywell and intends to sign on more customers this year.

“This reflects the trends in the global aerospace and defence industry, which are the fastest growing segments in the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) market,” he said.

The company's revenues stood at Rs 24.8 crore ($5.7 million) in 2004 and Dias is confident of touching the Rs 50 crore ($11.5 million) mark in 2008. In terms of revenues, India leads the pack in the APAC region.

Advertisment

Jeffrey M Brennan, VP, engineering software, Altair, said that the simulation space was maturing from testing and validation phase to being used in design analysis.

Besides automotive component and captive units of auto companies, Indian ISVs such as Satyam, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, which do high-end design engineering services, use Altair's design software products. Dias expects this space to grow significantly since Nasscom has estimated that the high-end engineering services market is worth $500 million at present.

Altair started its operations in India in 2001 and employs around 160 software engineers at its Bangalore center.

Advertisment

The Michigan, US-based company hopes to invest $5 million to ramp up the head count to 200 by the year-end. Altair occupies the number three position in the worldwide CAE market, which is estimated at around a billion dollars. Brennan said that CAE was growing faster (at 25%) than the CAD market (8% growth).

The company conducted a user conference in Bangalore recently, where customers and partners shared experiences about Altair's technology. Dias said that this would continue to be an annual affair.

tech-news