Home to many IT companies, Chennai is slowly becoming a hub in providing support for gaming and android-compatible technologies besides witnessing a new trend in supporting Computer Aided Design.

"Chennai is basically a very strong market for software support... particularly in the area of medical transcription and financial system. But, now we find it is slowly becoming a preferred place for supporting android and gaming technologies," a senior Software Technology Parks of India official said on condition of anonymity.

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Noting that there is an increase in providing support for Android and gaming devices, the official said world over there is a change in use of Android-based phones and to gaming devices offered by many companies.

"It is the new trend happening in this industry. The city is fast catching up," he said.

Besides serving these industries, he said Chennai, along with Coimbatore, was also witnessing a new trend in supporting CAD (Computer Aided Design) software or "engineering design".

According to official data there are about 1,766 companies registered with STPI in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

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Annually, they export to various countries and the latest figures shows that IT export growth compared to 2009-2010 was Rs 42,210.65 crore {Rs 422.1065 billion} (2010-11) from Rs 36,765 crore (Rs 367.65 billion) registered last year (2009-2010).

Besides serving the IT industry, he said the city was also home to good chartered accountants.

"The financial services system is also very good (in Chennai)," he said.

Referring to other cities, he said places such as Salem and Tiruchirapalli are fast catching up as preferred locations for IT firms.

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"In the case of Salem, it is geographically located close to (country's first IT capital) Bangalore. And Tiruchirapalli has some good educational institutes, where the students having good knowledge in IT industry becoming immediately employable in large IT firms," the official said.

Observing that it is because of these reasons, Tamil Nadu was poised for a "decent" industry growth, he said majority of growth drivers were application software and engineering software.

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"In 2010-11 alone, exports (from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry) on application software and engineering software was 38 per cent and 26 per cent (respectively)".

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had recently said the IT sector has powered the transformation of Tamil Nadu into a modern economy, clearly making it as India's "eastern gateway to the World" and not just to South Asia.

She had said, "Tamil Nadu has emerged very strong as a global leader in some specific verticals of the ITeS sector.

These are banking, financial services and insurance, health systems management, computer aided design and computer aided engineering".

The Indian IT and BPO Sector registered revenues of $88.1 billion this financial year, generating employment to over 2.5 million people, she said.

Software Technology Parks of India was set up by the Ministry of Information Technology in 1991, with an objective of encouraging, promoting and boosting the software exports from India.