On the face of it, the “Truffle 100” 2020 has drawn the curtain on a decade of continuous growth, which has been abruptly halted by the Covid-19 pandemic:
Read More:Â Simple Announces Launch of Tax Refund Feature to Automate Savings for Customers
- Several records were set in 2019: cumulative turnover for the sector was €10.8bn, total workforce in the sector stood at 157,000 jobs including 25,000 in R&D. Profitability at 11.1 % is very close to its historical high of 2006-2007. Moreover, buybacks and stock market transactions were sharply higher.
Despite the fact that the solid foundations built over the last decade will be exposed to a brutal shock in 2020, the Truffle 100 clearly shows that the areas in which software publishers have invested the most extensively are those that will be the most vital to withstand the current crisis and support the economic recovery:
- Thanks to their profit margins, which have returned to previous levels, software publishers have been able to ensure continuous research in crucial areas (in particular, the Cloud and artificial intelligence, which are the two major market trends) to support the transition to teleworking in the economy of tomorrow.
Read More: Kensho Collaborates with NVIDIA to Advance Automatic Speech Recognition
While 62% of software publishers forecast a downturn in 2020, 94% expect a return to growth in 2021.
Commenting on the 15th edition of the “Truffle 100”, Bernard-Louis Roques, General Manager and Co-founder of Truffle, declared: “Software is a digital business and software publishers have been among the quickest to adapt to the crisis. In just a few months, Covid-19 brought about a forced acceleration in terms of the company’s digital transition, with an irreversible digitalization of uses and organizations. Publishers will play a vital role in the development of the “post-Covid world”. Finally, I would like to thank Cédric Ô, the French Secretary of State for the Digital Economy, for agreeing to sponsor the 15th edition of the “Truffle 100″, which is more than a just an overview of the past, it is a leading indicator of the future.”
