New Delhi, Dec 21 (IANS): The cybersecurity services and product industry reached $9.85 billion in combined revenue in India this year, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 per cent in the last two years as companies scrambled to meet huge demand for cybersecurity talent amid the pandemic, a Nasscom-Data Security Council of India (DSCI) report showed on Tuesday.

Currently, the cybersecurity services companies employ 2.18 lakh people while product companies have a 27,000-strong workforce in the country.

The Indian cybersecurity industry is also expanding its global footprint, with a presence in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Australia, Singapore, and the UAE.

"India's cyber-security Industry was at the forefront supporting the government and all critical sectors to manage the heightened cyber security risk in the last two years through the pandemic," said Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

"The IT Ministry is committed to partnering with DSCI to scale up innovation in emerging areas like 5G, Hardware, IoT Security, and through our flagship ISEA and aFuture Skills Programmes' to meet the talent demand of the industry," he said during the release of the 'India Cybersecurity Industry Report-Services and Product Growth Story'.

According to the report, the cyber-security services industry grew from $4.3 billion in 2019 to $8.48 billion in 2021 at a CAGR of 40.33 per cent.

On the other hand, the product industry grew from $740 million in 2019 to reach $1.37 billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 36.49 per cent.

"The decade's worth of digital transformation has taken place in the last two years and India's technology industry has emerged as the preferred digital solutions partner with cybersecurity as a key growth vertical. Cybersecurity is now a boardroom agenda," said Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom.

Globally, the pandemic has fast tracked digitisation across the spectrum.

"While the services industry is expanding its footprint globally through platform-led offerings and cloud-based managed security services, the young product industry is innovating on new solution areas with a cloud-first strategy to reach global customers," said Rajendra S. Pawar, Chairman, DSCI.