China still needs improvement in high-end software to help the country grow from a big software country to a software power, said industry experts. “The country’s software industry has achieved a comprehensive improvement in scale, quality and efficiency over the past decade, and has vigorously driven the development of the digital economy,” said Lyu Weifeng, Secretary General of the China Software Industry Association. The business revenue of the software industry increased to about CNY9.5 trillion last year from about CNY2.5 trillion in 2012 with an average annual growth rate of 16.1%. The latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed that software business revenue maintained a double-digit growth to hit CNY2.77 trillion from January to April, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%.
“The maturity of domestic operating systems, databases, office software and other basic software has been significantly boosted, narrowing the gap with that of international mainstream products,” Lyu said. The HarmonyOS developed by Huawei Technologies has sold over 240 million units, while Kingsoft's WPS office software has been sold to more than 220 countries and regions. China's 14th Five Year Plan (2021-25) for the Development of the Software and Information Technology Service Industry emphasized that by 2025, the country will significantly improve its supply capacity of key software such as basic and industrial software, and will build two to three influential open-source communities globally.
Wang Xingshan, Executive President of Inspur, recalled that it was rare for large manufacturing enterprises to use domestic industrial software 10 years ago due to limited technology, as well as weak management and coordination capabilities. “But as local companies continued to tackle key technologies and make innovations, things have changed a lot,” said Wang, adding that 69 of around 97 central SOEs have used Inspur’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to drive their digital transformation. Now in China, more than 70% of software for business management is made in the country, but the high-end market is still dominated by foreign software leaders like SAP and Oracle, the China Daily reports.
