Chengdu was selected as one of the first five"Famous Software Cities" in China, as well as one of the first "Demonstration Cities for China's Outsourcing Service". It has already won 11 titles such as the the National Base for Software Industry, rankding first among all metropolises in China. In 2010, the total revenue of Chengdu's software industry rose 37% year-on-year reaching RMB 86.3 billion, contributing for over 5% of the city's GDP. Meanwhile. More than 840 certified software enterprises operate in Chengdu, including 135 enterprises with integration qualifications. Chengdu also hosts yearly the China International Software Summit also called Chinasoft since 2003, which is one of the most important gatherings for software professionals organized by the State Council Informatization Office and CCPIT.
The rapid development of the IT industry in Chengdu can be explained by the following factors: mature electronic industry (Intel, Motorola and Ericsson), large number of research institutes (over 150) and higher education (51). According to a report which was released in October 2010 by India's Global Services, Chengdu ranks 40th among the top 100 outsourcing cities in the global service outsourcing sector, and was the first city in West China to make the first. According to the latest public statistics, the amount of Chengdu human resource reaches 1.8 million. About 200,000 people are employed in the software industry, among which 80 percent hold a bachelor's degree or above. It is estimated that the software industry will provide jobs for more than 220,000 people at the end of 2011.
Since 2008, the IT and software industry in Chengdu has gain momentum with increasing number of companies selecting the city to implant their back-offices or development centers to take advantage of the good talent pool and low operation costs. This trend was exacerbated by the financial crisis, which has pushed companies to western part of China to further reduce operation costs. In February 2009 Accenture picked Chengdu to set up a Global Delivery Center, DHL in April 2009 for a Shared Service Center, Wipro in May 2009 for an ITO delivery center, Alibaba in July 2009 for a R&D and back office center, Maersk in October 2009 for a Global Shared Service Center, Manulife in January 2010 for a captive center, Amazon in March 2010 for a call-center, Wind River in April 2010 for a R&D center, Siemens in April for a operation center, GE in June for a financial service center, ANZ in September for a operation center, Lenovo in October for a western base covering production, R&D, sales & marketing, Dell in Jan 2011 for a customer service center, EMC in May 2011 for a R&D center.
The structure of the IT industry and software sector in Chengdu consists of five main groups: software application (Nokia-Siemens, Alcatel, Motorola, Ericsson, SAP and Huawei), IC design (Fujitsu, Conexant, Sonix, ASM, MPS and Freescale), digital entertainment (Ubisoft, Gameloft, Tencent, Perfect World, Kingsoft and SNDA), service outsourcing (IBM, Accenture, Wipro, Symbio, Tieto, VanceInfo Beyondsoft and Chinasoft) and captive center (Maersk, DHL, ANZ, Manulife,Industrial and Commercial Bank and Ping’an insurance).