Huawei's Enterprise Vision For India

Following the unveiling of its new global strategy that includes a greater focus on the cloud, handsets and technology for corporate users, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. believes it's already equipped to occupy a key position in India's enterprise market, which is currently dominated by established players such as Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Juniper Networks Inc. and Microsoft Corp.. (See Huawei Debuts Enterprise Unit in India, and and .)

"Our revenue targets are in line with what most of the other top enterprise solution providers are generating today. We believe it is a market which has opportunity for everyone and we are here to share the market, not necessarily to compete," Daniel Jiang, Vice President, Enterprise Busines Unit at Huawei told Light Reading India.

According to the company, it has already surpassed its 2010 global revenues of US$30.5 billion (INR 1535.6 billion) by generating sales of $35 billion (INR 1762.2 billion) from its global portfolio so far this calendar year. Of that total, around $4 billion (INR 201.4 billion) has come from its enterprise division. Huawei sees India as one of the major contributor to the future growth of its enterprise business and believes that around $1 billion (INR 50.3 billion) will come from the India market within the next five years.

"We believe that if we can survive in India, we can survive in any other country. All other countries are just a piece of cake," adds Jiang.

At present the company's enterprise business unit in India has around 150 people, though it plans to increase that to up to 400 by next year. Under its enterprise business portfolio in India, the company has divided the focus into key segments, including IP equipment, IT systems, vertical industry segments and services. Though Huawei did not comment on the split targets it has marked for the growth in these segments, it believes IT (including its cloud computing, storage, servers and data center platforms) will be a key sector.

The company has also earmarked a significant sum of investment to further boost its Research and Development center in Bangalore and is contemplating the addition of more people to develop customised offerings for the Indian market. The center has around 2,000 people employed currently. Huawei refused to reveal investment details for the Indian market.

Huawei is not alone in its enterprise ambitions: Rival Chinese telecom equipment vendor ZTE Corp. is another equipment firm planning to address the enterprise segment.

New technologies
In the vertical sectors, the company is working hard to introduce solutions based upon Smart Metering Technology, Tele-Medicine and E-learning. And in an effort to make banking more convenient for Indian users, Huawei is planning to introduce a Virtual Teller Machine early next year.

The company is already in talks with several banks to create a complete banking services solution. "The solution will co-exist with existing ATMs and will largely attract eyeballs from banks who are in expanding phase in the country," adds Jiang.

Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India