Prime Investment’s Baltic ICT Market News report, which reflects key indicators for the Top 20 Baltic IT services companies, shows a revenue decrease in the IT sector of 4.7 percent for the first half of 2009. However, despite the significant downward trend in market indicators, Exigen Services remains the leading Baltic IT services company with nearly 10 million EUR in revenue.

Exigen Services Latvia Chief Operational Officer Guntis Urtans notes: “Keeping the leader position in the Baltic IT services market despite the decrease in revenue is a great success. The economic downturn affected us later than companies of other sectors, but I assume the impact was therefore more rapid in this period. The decrease in revenue was mainly due to reduced income from public sector projects, a significant share of our revenue. In terms of the public sector, we are not likely to see increased revenue in the near term, but are hoping for stabilization.”

He continued: “As we look forward to 2010, we are not expecting miracles, but are cautiously optimistic because of new large-scale projects started in North America and also the latest forecasts indicating that the European IT market will see growth next year, albeit a modest amount. However, the situation in Latvian and Lithuanian IT markets, including public procurements, will still have a significant impact on our positions.”

According to the research done by Prime Investment, the downturn in local markets is being compensated by an increase in the volume of exports. In this regard, Latvia is the leader among the three Baltic States, deriving 43% of its IT sector revenues from exports. At the same time, Estonia saw a slightly more stable market situation, which allowed the IT sector to gain most of its revenue from local customers, earning only 10% from exports.