By Riham Alkousaa

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s engineering firm Siemens wants to raise the share of software and digital business sales in the group to around 20% in the long term, its Chief Executive Roland Busch was quoted as saying as the company seeks growth in that market.

Busch said he was very confident that the company could reach its target of digital growth of more than 10% this year, despite the ongoing switch to a “Software-as-a-Service” rental model.

“We have gained new customers and additional sales, especially from small and medium-sized companies, via the Siemens Xcelerator platform,” Busch was quoted as saying by Handelsblatt newspaper on Wednesday.

The platform which Siemens presented last year now has 70 external partners offering 91 applications and 333 products, he added.