The 'SWITCH' companies as these entities are being referred by Gartner accounted for 2.4 per cent of the total worldwide IT services market in 2007, which was 1.9 per cent in 2006.

"With such strong growth rates that exceed the overall market, the India-based IT services providers are increasing in their competitiveness and taking market share away from the rest of the market”, said Gartner's Senior Research Analyst Arup Roy.

"Increasingly they are competing in larger outsourcing deals, with deal values routinely exceeding $100 million and spanning multiple years."

TCS maintained its position as the largest of the India-based IT services vendors worldwide in 2007, ranked at 28th with revenue growth of 34.8 per cent rising against 35th in 2006.

While TCS growth was slightly below average for this group of vendors at 38per cent in 2007, it grew more than three times the growth rate of the total market on revenue of USD 3.8 billion in 2006.

In 2007, the India-based group of SWITCH companies accounted for 3.6 per cent of the US IT services market, compared with 2.8 per cent in 2006 and grew its Western European revenue by 51 per cent in 2007, almost four times the total market.