Global IT solutions major, SAP stated that it had doubled up its Indian customer base from 1,000 in August 2006 to 2,000 now. The growth assumes signification as it took up the company nine years in India to touch the 1,000-customer mark, and only twelve months to twice it.

In its initial SAP executive board conference in India, Henning Kegermann, SAP’s chief executive officer (CEO) said, “The unprecedented growth that we are seeing from India is one of the best examples of how our 2010 strategy translates into action. Markets like India are at an inflection point when it comes to the adoption of technology by businesses of all shapes and sizes.”

Internationally, SAP has fixed for itself an objective of achieving 1 lakh clients by next three years (2010). To attain this aim, the company is relying on small and mid-size business groups and rising markets like China and India.

SAP also reaffirmed investment of $1 billion in India by 2010. A big part of this investment will be used for expanding the company’s worldwide growth as wll as services and support hub in India, SAP Labs.

“SAP Labs India is the largest research and development hub and support presence for us outside Germany. We foresee the Gurgaon centre scaling up significantly in the next few years to enable us meet our goals for India,” said Mr. Henning Kagermann.

The German company gathered around 13 per cent of its total earning from the Asia-Pacific region as compared to 52 per cent from European countries and 35 per cent from the United States in the second quarterly period ending June.

But, Mr. Henning has decided that India wouldn’t exceed Germany and the US in the foreseeable future, as there was a big difference in their earnings.

The company (SAP) has also signed up an exclusive contract with Wipro, as part of which, the Indian IT major will turn SAP’s worldwide services partner and set up a solutions lab in Bangalore.