Germany is looking to India for growth

The company, which has its Indian headquarters in Bangalore, said it will recruit the new staff during the next three years.

"India is a key market in Asia for SAP," said the firm's chief executive, Henning Kagermann, on his first visit to India.

"It is one of the focus areas where future growth will happen for SAP."

Mr Kagermann added that the company enjoys a 60% market share of the enterprise applications market in India and has a customer base of 400.

The current facility is the first and largest SAP development centre outside Germany Henning Kagermann SAP chief executive

Enterprise applications include software to help companies run human resources, finance, customer relationship management and other corporate processes.

The company is increasing its headcount from a current figure of 1,000 because it believes India is a source of cheap but highly skilled software professionals.

Investment

SAP Labs India, SAP's development arm, has already announced it will invest $20m (�12.1m; 18m euros) in a new centre in Bangalore to develop products for its Indian clients.

"The current facility [in Bangalore] is the first and largest SAP development centre outside Germany," said Mr Kagermann, adding that it will also carry out global research.

He also suggested that more work would be outsourced to the centre in India, after saying it would be used to support global operations.

SAP established a subsidiary in India in 1996, and it has offices in Bangalore, Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta and New Delhi.

Customers in India include oil and natural gas group Tata, auto maker Bajaj Auto, Infosys and Indian Oil.

Mr Kagermann noted, however, that there had been no increase in IT spending by global firms.